(note: This issue was put up late, and so has no Table of Contents. It is complete otherwise. The PDF version has the original format and a complete Table of Contents.)

IRAQI WORKERS’ AND GIs’ BLOOD SPILLED FOR BIG OIL PROFITS

"You call Donald Rumsfeld and tell him our sorry asses are ready to go home. Tell him to come spend a night in our building," said Private Mathew C. O’Dell, 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division. (NY Times 6/15)

As U.S. occupation forces in Iraq face increasing opposition, U.S. soldiers say, "send us home!"

How quickly things change. The Rumsfeld-Bush-Blair gang went from "shock and awe" on the war’s first day, to being briefly derailed by some Iraqi resistance the following week, to a quick victory when the Iraqi army basically stopped fighting or disappeared — and some Iraqi generals were paid off. Bush declared on May 1, upon his aircraft-carrier photo-op landing, that the war was basically over. Now we hear reports of a "guerrilla" war. Stratfor.com (on-line intelligence service) calls it a possible Vietnam-style quagmire. Soldiers and elements within the U.S. ruling class are attacking Rumsfeld for his "military shortsightedness." He’s turned from a Napoleon to a buffoon.

One mother, writing to the New York Post (6/20) said, "My son is one of those exhausted troops....He told us in letters he was hungry, thin, tired, chewed up by chiggers, his hair was too long, and he was barely clean….It’s time to send these weary men home to their loved ones."

Another wrote, "My son, part of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, was sent out last November …and has been involved in the combat and post-combat rebuilding ever since….Don’t you think it is time for him and his battalion to come home also?"

These GI’s thought their tour of duty was over. Instead they’re facing an angry Iraqi population and guerrilla fighting. Of the 194 U.S. soldiers acknowledged to have been killed since the invasion began, nearly one-fourth have died since May 1 when Bush declared the war "over." The death of six British MPS in what was until now considered relatively quiet southern Iraq shows the war is far from over.

This has revived the Vietnam Syndrome among rank-and-file soldiers, with a potential for protests and demands to be sent home alive. This combination of local resistance and GI rebellion led to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago.

But while many soldiers and their families back home blame Rumsfeld, others blame — and attack — the Iraqis for the situation they’re in. This is a crucial question. GI’s must understand that their enemy is the U.S. bosses who lied through their teeth in order to seize the huge Iraqi oil reserves (world’s second largest), as part of their drive to remain the world’s number one imperialist power.

Liberals Want Bigger Military

The liberal bosses and many in the U.S. media are attacking the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush military strategy for another reason: underestimating the number and rotation of troops needed for the occupation of Iraq and future wars. The liberal Washington Post worries that the lack of rotating more troops will make the army less effective as a fighting force for the bosses. It reported that U.S. troops are "‘frustrated and disillusioned’ as peacekeepers deployed too thinly." Even right-winger Robert Novak (New York Post, 6/23) says, "the unspoken fear in Army circles is that complaints will depress reenlistment, so important to an all-volunteer force, and ultimately diminish the vital corps of non-commissioned officers….With more than 370,000 soldiers, or 70 percent of the Army, deployed in 120 countries, President Bush’s capability to pursue his doctrine of pre-emption is constrained." In a speech marking his retirement as Army Chief of Staff, Gen Eric Shinseki warned, "Beware the 12-division strategy for a 10-division army." (New York Times, 6/23)

Senator Joseph Biden, leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, "I think we’re going to be here in a big way with forces and economic input for a minimum of three to five years." (Time, on line, 6/23)

The Bush Administration has contracted troops from other countries, including India and Honduras, to help occupy Iraq. The press in Central America reported that Honduran rank-and-file soldiers will be paid $5 a day to help occupy Iraq!

The Rumsfeld camp and the liberal hawks are fighting over the best way to run Iraq, control its oil and guarantee a military loyal to carrying out their murderous plans. The interests of rank-and-file soldiers from the U.S., Iraq, India and Central America are the same: to unite with each other against imperialism and its wars for profit. Class-conscious workers, students and soldiers can take advantage of the imperialists’ problems to make their nightmare — of working-class, anti-racist unity and rebellion in the ranks — come true.`

WORKERS REBEL AGAINST RACIST POLICE TERROR

BENTON HARBOR, MI, June 21 — "Yeah, that’s what we need!" was the response from a black resident when a PLP member said communism is the only solution to racist cop killings and repression. We came here in the wake of a three-day rebellion of mainly black workers after the racist police chased a young black motorcyclist, Terrance Shurn, 28, at speeds up to 100 mph to his death. This is the latest in a string of racist police killings, including one young black man who was strangled. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Benton Harbor is a police state, with armored personnel carriers and convoys of 20 police cars, three cops to a car, roaming the small neighborhood.

This mostly black community of 11,000 has a 25% unemployment rate and dilapidated housing. Across the river, neighboring St. Joseph is an affluent, mostly white community of 8,700, with a median income double Benton Harbor’s and a 2% unemployment rate. State and Benton Township police harass black workers who don’t return across the river before sundown and humiliate and terrify young people for no reason. Benton Harbor was once home to many factories. Few are left, such as Whirlpool and auto-parts maker Bosch. The deepening crisis of overproduction has surplused much of the workforce, forcing those lucky enough to find jobs to labor under slave-like conditions, going from one job to the next. Many find it difficult to land jobs paying more than $5 an hour.

One woman said she was stopped in St. Joseph for simply spending the day at the beach. Another worker told how the cops stopped two kids and stripped them naked in broad daylight. Even the young children now know from which cop cars they should run for their lives. It’s no wonder that Shurn decided to run.

While PLP members went door to door, an armored vehicle rumbled down the street. State police stopped and harassed workers for no reason, nearly sealing off the area. The police stopped and detained dozens of black workers, confiscating their cars for minor offenses.

Benton Township cop, Wes Koza, has a history of brutalizing black workers. He was involved in a high-speed chase that killed a five-year-old child. The year before he used a stranglehold to kill a black worker. So it was no shock that racist KKKoza took up the chase that killed a 28 year old black man whose only crime was speeding. Some in the community say he rammed the motorcycle with his squad car, forcing Shurn to lose control.

Two days before we arrived, Jesse Jackson showed up to say, "Our fight isn’t against the police." This millionaire businessman is planning a mass march for "economic justice." (Benton Harbor’s police chief is his former bodyguard.) We’ll be there to expose these misleaders and bring the ideas of anti-racism and communism to the workers.

We distributed 200 CHALLENGES. Two people expressed how important it was for them to go and show solidarity with Benton Harbor’s workers. We made several contacts and many workers took extra CHALLENGES for their friends and family. Some asked us to return. Our plan is to take more people back with us to meet these workers who are open to our revolutionary communist ideas.

War is Also on Liberal Dems’ Agenda

The dominant liberal wing of U.S. capital hopes to use Bush’s Weapons of Mass Destruction scandal to unseat him in 2004. But a Democratic victory next year will never benefit the working class. By exposing Bush’s lies about Iraqi weapons, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Senator Jay Rockefeller and others are, in fact, advancing the cause of war and fascism.

On June 17 in Washington, the New Democrat Network (NDN), founded by presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, outlined its six-point Agenda for the First Decade of the 21st Century. Blessing the NDN program were, along with Lieberman, presidential contender John Kerry and General Wesley Clark, who directed the U.S.-led bombing of Serbia during the Clinton regime. Each plank in the liberals’ platform promotes either imperialist wars abroad or tightened social control at home.

Their foremost goal is to "Assert Responsible Global Leadership: win the war on terrorism and end international conflicts that threaten our interests, ensure that America’s military is the strongest, most agile, and best equipped in the world." "Our interests" is a code for U.S. control of Mideast oil that goes back to the Carter administration. The NDN covers its war aims with the usual liberal humanitarianism. While it invades nation after nation, the NDN says the U.S. will also "combat AIDS and other pandemics that threaten global stability, and work together with our allies and international organizations to advance democracy, liberty, free markets, opportunities for women, and rising standards of living across the world."

Next is a call to "Protect the Homeland: Help the new Homeland Security Department create and implement a comprehensive homeland security strategy." Translation: more domestic spying on workers, more deportations and more imprisonment without cause. Under the heading "Strengthen Families and Communities" come plans for expanding fascistic community policing and launching "community service" programs that open the door to a new military draft.

The New Democrats say: "Modernize Our Health Care System: provide all with access to quality and affordable health insurance, address the rapid rise of costs, reform and improve Medicare and provide a market-based prescription drug benefit." These moves serve the main wing’s need to wrest control of health care from the drug and insurance companies. GE, GM and other large corporations don’t want to send billions to those outfits in paying for the health coverage of their workforce.

The remaining points in the NDN agenda are the age-old Establishment demands for conservation and free trade. Since President Teddy Roosevelt’s day, conservation laws have helped ensure a supply of raw materials for the more powerful capitalists at the expense of upstarts. And, throughout the history of the profit system, free trade has benefited the nation with the military might to enforce its access to worldwide markets and cheap labor.

Completely absent from the New Democrats’ agenda and from the rhetoric of the viable candidates is any anti-war sentiment. Lieberman, Kerry, and Gephardt all supported Bush’s murderous invasion of Iraq. The Democrats differ from the Bush gang only tactically, over how much of a humanitarian fig leaf they should put on their imperialist butchery. On the very day the NDN met, Sandy Berger, Clinton’s national security advisor and a major Democratic strategist, was at the liberal Brookings Institution praising the U.S. war machine’s slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqi workers. "I believe we did the right thing in Iraq...I am glad the Bush administration has made the greater Middle East a policy priority....President Bush has set ambitious goals. He has acted boldly. I respect that."

Lieberman, Kerry, and Gephardt have chastised Bush for doing too little, too slowly to carry out the drastic homeland security measures presented in the Hart-Rudman reports. And in an unprecedented move, Rand Beers, a domestic terrorism expert on Bush’s National Security Council, quit in frustration and jumped on the Democrats’ bandwagon. "Beers’ resignation surprised Washington, but what he did next was even more astounding. Eight weeks after leaving the Bush White House, he volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a Democratic candidate for president, in a campaign to oust his former boss" (Washington Post, 6/16). Said Beers, "The administration wasn’t matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They’re making us less secure, not more secure." This advocate for fascism thinks the Democrats will be more successful at implementing it.

Whether a Democrat or a Republican sits in the White House, we can expect more U.S.-led invasions and some form of a sharper crackdown on U.S. workers. Real political change will come about only when the working class seizes power in a communist revolution. The many aspects of the long-term struggle toward this goal form the platform of the Progressive Labor Party. These include building a base of co-workers, friends, and neighbors; leading class struggle against the bosses’ growing attacks; widening CHALLENGE circulation; sharing our communist analysis of events, and recruiting new members to PLP.

Hospital Bosses Attack — Workers Fight Back!

CHICAGO, IL June 23 — "This is fascism!" declared dietitian Carol O’Neil after being fired last week at Stroger Hospital (the new name for Cook County Hospital — CCH). Carol has never been taken to a disciplinary hearing in her 19-year career at the hospital. But she has defended hundreds of workers over the past 13 years as one of the most active, anti-racist and pro-worker chief stewards in SEIU Local 73/HC (Health Care). She was active in the CCH InCAR (International Committee Against Racism) and waged various campaigns for workers and patients.

The new Nutrition and Food Services boss Amjad Ali has a long racist, sexist, anti-worker history. He recently harassed Mrs. Cooper, a supervisor, over using her Family Medical Leave time to care for her sick husband. At the end of May he took Mrs. Cooper, who had medical problems of her own, to a disciplinary hearing for her attendance. He said she had to decide if she should resign and stay home to care for her husband. Workers never saw her as upset as she was that day. The next morning she died.

One worker said, "I hold [Ali] responsible for Mrs. Cooper’s death." The shameless bosses actually began building their case against Carol when she tried resolving a grievance after returning to work the day of Mrs. Cooper’s funeral. Eventually they brought seven trumped-up charges against her, ranging from "being out of her work area" to "being behind in her paper work"!

Meanwhile, the union leadership is facing a serious challenge. Carol is running for local office on the reform "Members First" slate (ballots were mailed out just after she was fired). The local covers about 30 worksites. County is crucial to winning and Carol is the key to County. Local President Pia Davis is fighting to keep her $95,000-a-year office. She told Carol, "You all are trying to take my job," then insisted on personally "defending" her at the hearing.

On very short notice, dozens of workers signed petitions demanding the charges be dropped and brought them to the hearing. A group of about 20 witnesses and supporters escorted Carol to the hearing, despite Davis’s "concern" that it might intimidate the bosses.

A few days after the hearing, Carol was fired and given a police escort to clean out her office and leave the building. Co-workers were shocked and angry and offered to help. "At first I was embarrassed and then angry," Carol said. "I told one of my co-workers and she told the rest. I have some fears, but I decided to put my faith in the collective and it was the right thing to do."

The next day over 100 workers, including Members First leaders, held a lunch-time gathering in the cafeteria to begin circulating another petition to get Carol rehired. About 20 hospital security and Chicago cops failed to intimidate the workers and couldn’t get her to leave because of all the workers surrounding her, showering her with hugs and support. Ultimately, all visitors’ passes had to be cancelled. Even then it took the cops another half-hour to get Carol and her supporters out of the hospital. So much for "free speech" when workers fight back.

Within every attack lies a golden opportunity. We can politically defeat the racism and sexism of the bosses as well as the self-serving union hacks. The fight for Carol’s job has already put many workers in motion and activated many friends of the Party. Our CHALLENGE network helped to distribute 500 PLP leaflets throughout the hospital and more workers attended our last PLP club meeting. Whether or not Carol gets her job back, and she will, we can recruit more workers to PLP, expand the base for CHALLENGE and increase our political leadership in the main healthcare union in Chicago. This reminds us of the power workers have when we unite to fight.

Eastern German Auto Strikers Lead the Way

A series of auto strikes in the former East Germany is affecting the industry nationwide. Workers in the east want to cut their work-week from, 38 hours a week to 35 as it is in the west. Production of Volkswagen’s Golf model at the Wolfsburg complex, VW’s biggest plant, could stop if strikes continue to interrupt the parts flow.

DaimlerChrysler, Audi and BMW have also been hit. Meanwhile, the walkouts have forced the steel industry to agree to begin reducing work hours between 2005 and 2009.

The IG Metall union started the strikes several weeks ago, under pressure from hundreds of thousands of auto and steel workers. The strikes have erupted while the economy of Germany, Europe’s strongest, is facing the same problems as the U.S.: recession and deflation. Workers are refusing to pay for the bosses’ crisis.

The sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry is forcing both U.S. and European rulers to sharpen the attacks on their workers, to get the money and manpower to build their war machines. Despite appearances, German union leaders are no better than their U.S. UAW counterparts. Nationalism means they’re far more committed to their bosses than their workers.

Autoworkers worldwide should support these strikes. This fall, contracts expire at GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler in the U.S. Autoworkers here should follow the lead of their fellow workers in eastern Germany. "Autoworkers of the world, unite!"

VW and Hitler’s ‘People’s Car’

To maintain the illusion he was for the German workers, Hitler commissioned auto boss Ferdinand Porsche to build a "people’s car" (Volkswagen). On March 26, 1938, construction began on what was to become the world’s largest auto plant, with the aim of hiring 30,000 workers and producing one million units yearly. The plan included taking money from workers’ paychecks throughout Germany to help them buy a VW. World War II put an end to that Nazi dream.

Only 630 VWs were produced for civilian use while tens of thousands of military vehicles were manufactured for the Nazi Army. Hitler’s regime stole these workers’ contributions for their cars and put them into a war fund. Like many other German companies, VW used lots of slave labor during the war.

When the war ended, Porsche was jailed for war crimes.

In 1948, with help from the Marshall Plan, engineer Heinrich Nordhoff became president of VW and began the process which turned it into Europe’s biggest auto company and one of the largest in the world.

While Union, Democratic Governor Push Racist Cuts:

Rank And Filers Resist Boeing’s Extortion

OLYMPIA, WA, June 11 — "When will they [the union misleaders] realize we’re at war with global corporations?" complained a Boeing Machinist as dozens of us distributed thousands of leaflets hand-to-hand, attacking the union-backed cuts in worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance. "They’ll never be our friends."

Boeing has demanded billions in concessions from 18 states competing for final assembly of the company’s proposed new jet, the 7E7 — "E" for "extortion."

Washington State’s Governor Locke — a rising star in the Democratic Party who recently gave the Democratic reply to Bush’s State of the Union speech — agreed to keep the company’s demands secret. Meanwhile, he helped orchestrate a $3.2 billion, 20-year Boeing tax cut. That translates to $133,000 a year for each of the 1,200 workers the new factory would employ.

Worker’s comp. and unemployment insurance (UI) will be slashed whether or not Boeing decides to locate here. Thousands of injured workers, particularly those suffering hearing loss from noisy Boeing factories, will find themselves cut off without a cent. The 35,000 laid-off Boeing workers will have their UI benefits capped immediately. Over the next few years, both the duration of benefits and the maximum will shrink. In perhaps the cruelest cut, 44,000 other (seasonal) workers, including 23% of the farm workers, will lose their UI benefits entirely. The rest will be cut even more than higher-paid workers.

The Boeing Machinists union pressured the State Labor Council to agree to cutbacks. The Council, however, balked at shifting the cuts to the poorest workers. Instead, they wanted an across-the-board UI reduction. The Boeing union refused to budge, demanding bigger cuts for the poor. The company drove a Mack truck through the split in the labor lobby, getting huge cutbacks for poor workers and 10% reductions for Boeing workers to boot. No wonder big business and the Republicans invited Machinist political director Linda Lanham to their victory news conference.

At those plants receiving significant numbers of our flyers before the legislative vote, workers were furious at "those corporate whores down at the [union] hall." Our leaflet asked, "Since when has fighting for jobs meant attacking the laid-off?" We rejected any cuts or coalitions with the State’s bosses in the name of "fighting for jobs." We called for solidarity with farm workers, the laid-off and workers in other states, many of whom are also Machinists, being subjected to this same corporate blackmail.

The union leadership portrays these cuts as "a great legislative victory." "Many of these seasonal workers aren’t even in unions," said Machinist District President Mark Blondin, defending his treachery. "Machinists who work for 15 years or more without ever drawing unemployment is the sort of worker who should be eligible for benefits," added Linda Lanham.

Worker Knows Racism When He Sees It

"What! Is it the farm workers’ fault the growers throw them on the street?" shouted a rank-and-file member, when he heard the leadership’s "reasoning." "Maybe it’s their fault they weren’t born white!" (Most Boeing workers remaining after the layoffs are white, while most farm workers are Latino.) Class-conscious workers, like this white Machinist, know racism when they see it!

The union leaders may not realize we’re at war, but the bosses sure do. They’re bogged down in an increasingly costly occupation of Iraq. "The spiraling costs of America’s global military dominance," says the British Financial Times (6/10), "[could seriously damage] the American standard of living." The bosses plan to attack workers at home in order to pay for more pre-emptive military strikes.

Same Enemy, Same Fight

European workers — like those at Boeing’s competition, Airbus — face similar attacks. French workers’ pensions are being cut to pay for France’s own imperialist ambitions. "The European industrialists must unite to resist [U.S. military supremacy]," said French Defense Minister Alliot-Marie, throwing down the gauntlet on the eve of the Paris Air Show (La Monde, 6/14). She envisions an anti-U.S. military/industrial alliance from Portugal to Russia built on the backs of Europe’s workers.

The bosses and the union leadership want to chain us to the profits of our own individual bosses. We in Washington State got a taste of what that means. Karl Marx’s conclusion to the Communist Manifesto was never truer: "Workers Of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains!"

Deal-making At Boeing’s House of ILL Repute

OLYMPIA, WASH., June 19 — It ain’t the House of Blues… or the House of the Rising Sun. It’s none other than the Boeing House (of Ill Repute) in Olympia, WA.

Boeing’s house is just 50 yards from the State Legislature, a gathering place for Boeing lobbyists and lawmakers. According to the Seattle Times, here they sit on the porch, smoke big cigars, and eat pizza.

"It’s also a popular spot for adjournment parties. After this year’s 105-day regular session ended six weeks ago, two House members — one Republican and one Democrat — were seen swing dancing to a jug band rendition of "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers."

If this weren’t so disgusting it would be funny!

Of course what they were really doing was sealing the deal that Boeing demanded and the Machinists union approved: cut unemployment and disability benefits for thousands of laid-off and injured workers and provide nothing for seasonal workers.

Yakima Valley farm workers have been picketing the Boeing House (See article above). We will contact them as part of our summer activities. The bosses, their union flunkies and the government may be dancing together today, but the working class will eventually dance on their graves.

New Slogan, Same Class Collaboration

Last month, the Boeing Machinist leadership launched a campaign to land the 7E7 final assembly in Everett, Washington. Early on, members protested that the campaign slogan "Whatever It Takes" was a blank check for the company. The hacks quickly changed the slogan to the unintelligible "We Can Do It," hoping to camouflage the attacks on the working class they were about to endorse (see adjoining article).

This campaign will continue through November, when the company announces its production decision. The hacks kicked off their campaign in Everett, billing it as a "Rally For Jobs." In fact, the rally’s purpose was to mobilize shop stewards and whatever members they could to lobby for cuts in unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation. They plan to bring this traveling road show to all Puget Sound plants.

In only a few weeks, the union leadership has surrendered any pretext of workers’ solidarity. Their campaign clearly attacks selected groups of workers, the price for their publicly-stated plan to build coalitions with various Boeing-led business councils. The working class must answer with our own campaign, led by those class-conscious workers who can expose the deadly consequences of the union’s collaboration with the bosses.

Capitalism Not As Rosy AS NEA Liberals See It

NEW ORLEANS, June 24 — The media is filled with news about the occupation of Iraq, the failing "peace" in the Mid East, layoffs, racist unemployment, budget cuts and the Patriot Act’s attacks on workers’ rights, all indicating growing fascism. The rich get tax cuts, the working class gets more taxes. But seeming to view this period through rose-colored glasses, the National Education Association (NEA) leadership has called a conference with the theme: The United States of Education — Great Public Schools for Every Child. This week 10,000 U.S. teachers will be meeting here for the NEA’s yearly Representative Assembly, organized around that theme. As the NEA leadership sees the world, things are O.K. so let’s just keep inching along to better schools for everybody, without questioning the direction of a system based on wars and oppression for profit.

In fact, things are NOT OK. These wars, cuts and deficits are the effects of the capitalist crisis on the working class. Moreover, both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress and in the state capitols intend to continue attacking the working class with war abroad and cutbacks at home. And they can count on the union leaderships not to challenge their basic assumptions or their spending priorities.

Some union leaders nation-wide are negotiating for their "fair share" of the cuts. Health-care union leaders urge legislators to cut community colleges; community college union leaders urge them to cut K-12; K-12 urges cuts in health care. Others unions unite together, putting up token resistance — mostly lobbying politicians and calling passive demonstrations — against the cuts. Instead of fighting to put a moratorium on the debt paid to the banks — who get theirs no matter what — there are calls for higher taxes on sales, tobacco, real estate and vehicles, all hitting the working class hardest.

Nowhere do we see union leaders — especially true in the NEA — championing the power of the working class. Teachers are workers, and must see that their power lies in uniting with other workers in militant action to shut down the schools and other public services to fight the bosses’ attacks. Recently we saw how almost 200,000 striking teachers nearly shut down Peru, forcing the government to declare a national emergency when hundreds of thousands of other workers joined the teachers. (See CHALLENGE, 6/25)

The NEA is the country’s largest teachers union. We plan to organize among the thousands of NEA representatives who want to expose the blind loyalty of the leadership to this fascist system. We want to bring the ideas of class struggle, anti-racism and anti-imperialism to the NEA membership, beginning in this conference. While we should fight the Bush administration neo-conservatives, the bigger danger facing us are the liberals, including those heading the NEA, who lead us to the same place, just in a "nicer" way.

Teachers must not teach blind patriotism and obedience to destructive wars of profit and conquest. We must challenge a system that attacks working-class youth by sending them to fight the bosses’ wars, only to guarantee the profits of the few. Out of struggles against these cuts and for the truth, we can build our own strength and unity for the long-term fight for workers’ power.

Capitalism can no more provide "Great Public Schools for Every Child" than it can eliminate poverty, unemployment or imperialist wars. Capitalism is a class society, based on racism, which the bosses exploit for their profits. We need a real communist society where the fruits of our labor will be shared by all. Only then will health care and education for workers be central to society.

We must oppose the NEA leadership in their drive to blind us to the ruling class’s plans. Support any New Business Items which answer these attacks and put us on a path to struggle against rulers’ wars. Read and circulate CHALLENGE and give distributors your name to help build a movement in the NEA.

Bosses Kill 3 Million in War for Congo’s Minerals

Three million people have been killed in a war during the last five years involving an area as large as Western Europe. Even though it’s being waged with old fashioned guns and mainly child soldiers, it’s a war for the minerals without which "smart" bombs, cellular phones, videogames, space ships and laptops couldn’t be built. It is not a virtual war game but it’s for real, one that few people outside Africa know about.

For years, the Congo was ruled by one of the CIA’s favorite dictators, Mobutu. He renamed it Zaire. Mobutu became enormously wealthy as a lackey of the U.S. and Apartheid South Africa, helping them arm forces like those of Jonas Savimbi who fought the pro-Soviet regime of Angola. When the Cold War ended, Mobutu, along with Savimbi, became useless to their masters. Laurent Kabila, helped by Ugandan and Rwandan armies — in exchange for future mineral concessions — organized a rebellion against Mobutu and ousted him.

But peace did not come to the newly-named Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kabila was murdered in 2001 and succeeded by his son Joseph. Since then there have been many unsuccessful attempts to reach a cease-fire with rival warlords. The latest fighting erupted in the Eastern Congo.

Although it’s labeled a tribal conflict, similar to the massacre of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi in the early 1990s, it’s much more than that. The rulers of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi support warlords who control the richest part of the Congo. Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, Lybia and Sudan support the Kabila regime. They’re after the Congo’s mineral wealth: 2/3 of the world’s supply of cobalt, 10% of the copper, one third of the world’s diamonds, huge deposits of gold, manganese, uranium and oil. It also has 80% of the world’s coltan, a super-conductor mineral used in everything from cellular phones to space ships. Multi-national companies, mainly U.S. and South African, are vigorously pursuing this coltan.

Recently the organization l’Observatoire de l’Afrique Centrale (OBSAC), reported that the Canadian-based Heritage Oil Company is now involved. On June 2, 2002, it acquired 30,000 square kilometers of land in Eastern Congo now controlled by the Kabila government. Heritage Oil decided to risk oil exploration in the area. But while Kabila and Uganda’s rulers will profit from the deal, the rulers of Rwanda and its forces are excluded. Until recently, the Rwandan-run militias controlled this oil rich area. France-Belgium’s TotalFinaElf is unhappy with the deal since it expected to get the rights won by Heritage. Be sure that the French Special Forces sent to the region for "humanitarian reasons" will be mainly used on behalf of Totalfina.

Meanwhile, 50,000 people have died in the most recent fighting in Eastern Congo, and one million are refugees. Most of the fighting involves child soldiers used by the different militias as cannon fodder.

This is the essence of capitalism and imperialism in the 21st century: wars, mass murder, starvation, all on the altar of profits. For the sake of our children and humanity, let’s build an international movement to destroy this rotten system and build communism.

The Secret Holocaust

Many millenniums ago, the great leap in evolution developed the first humans in Central Africa’s Rift valley in the Great Lakes region. Their offsprings populated the entire world, changing appearances to adapt to different climates and environments.

For centuries, the Congo was protected from pillaging by the European descendants of these primates because of its jungles and difficult-to-traverse rivers. Portuguese and Arab traders bought slaves from the coastal tribes who had captured them from their inland enemies. The colonialists then sold these slaves in the New World.

The rough climate, geography and flies which destroyed horses kept the colonialists away from the inland Congo until the end of the 19th century. It was the last place in Africa to fall to European empires, and became the private property of Belgium’s King Leopold II. Leopold never set foot on his property but died one of the world’s richest men after 20 years of pillaging the Congo and killing 15 million people. (Mark Twain waged an international campaign against this 19th century holocaust.)

The Congo was ruled till the early 1960s as a Belgian colony. When Leopold’s heirs departed, they left the country in ruins, without any basic services. Then Patrice Lumumba, a left-wing anti-colonialist, became Congo’s Prime Minister and tried to improve conditions. But he was too friendly with the Soviet Union so the CIA organized his assassination and installed their agent Mobutu in power. It’s gone from bad to worse ever since.

Expose Mexico’s Bosses In Fight vs. Layoffs

State of Mexico, Mexico, June 10 — "The bosses are thieves, a parasitic class that must be eliminated," said a leaflet distributed inside a freight company famous for being repressive. That’s how the workers responded to the firing of two workers for having taken a can of chilies. The bosses were furious at the exposé of how they become rich through robbery and exploitation. They’ve since launched a frantic campaign to repress the rebellious workers.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says the Mexican economy has low productivity. The country’s consequent loss of markets has rattled the ruling class. They’re desperate to turn this situation around by imposing fascist working conditions, punishments, suspensions, threats, lengthening work-hours, increasing the amount of work and through arbitrary firings.

Gabriela was fired because she refused to work 10 hours for 8 hours pay. Carlos wouldn’t work 12 hours for 8 hours pay, so the bosses claimed he "improperly" used a computer and fired him.

The firing of Gabriella, the murders of the women workers of the maquillas (sweatshops) of Juarez, the sexism and racism that are behind these tremendous crimes, the millions of single mothers who fight to survive and are thrown on the street by the bosses — all this demands that we fight to destroy this murderous decaying capitalist system, which is incapable of offering us decent lives. We need more women in PLP to provide the communist leadership that the working class needs.

The workers are in motion in a slow but sure process: their class hatred and anger is being directed to intensify the class struggle, build unity with other workers and a network of CHALLENGE readers to give political leadership to all workers.

Mexico’s bosses are losing market share to their Chinese competitors. Their union hacks from the CTM (main Mexican labor federation) organized a violent nationalist demonstration against merchandise made in China. We workers must not fall into this bosses’ trap. The commodities, the market, productivity and nationalism are all bosses’ institutions and policies to increase the exploitation and oppression of the whole working class. International workers’ unity and the fight for communism can put workers on the offensive against the bosses’ constant attacks. Join PLP.

No Mere ‘Technicality’

Soviet Workers Saved World From Nazi Scourge

June 19th was the 50th anniversary of the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for "conspiracy" to give U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II (see CHALLENGE, 6/25). A "review" of the case appeared in the New York Times (6/15) by Sam Roberts, author of a book about Ethel’s brother David Greenglass who admitted lying to send his sister to the electric chair. Roberts, in explaining why the Rosenbergs "weren’t charged with treason," says "the Russians were technically an ally in the mid-1940’s."

While Roberts’ "technical" definition may apply to the U.S. ruling class, the Soviet workers and Red Army were most definitely a true ally and comrade-in-arms to the international working class, including U.S. workers.

On June 22, 1941, 3,000,000 Nazi troops — until then perhaps the most committed military machine in world history — invaded the Soviet Union along a 2,000-mile front. After conquering Western Europe in two months, with Britain on its knees, Hitler was boasting that they would be in Moscow in six weeks (a prediction shared by this same NY Times and the rest of the U.S. press).

The Soviet Red Army became the first force to halt the Nazis, fighting alone against Hitler for 2½ years and defeating the Nazis at Stalingrad, the turning point of WWII.

Amid this most massive confrontation of armies the world had ever seen, the Soviet working class transported all its heavy industry eastward beyond the Ural Mountains to keep its weapons production beyond the reach of the Nazi attackers. That would be like moving all the factories from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago west of the Mississippi.

Simultaneously, Soviet workers pursued a "scorched earth" campaign, burning and destroying everything in the western Soviet Union to prevent Hitler’s invaders from using these resources. That’s the equivalent of "scorching the earth" from New England to Florida and the entire Appalachian Mountain states.

Between 20 and 30 million Soviets died in WWII. The COMBINED losses of the U.S. (under 300,000), Britain (500,000) and the entire British Empire (120,000) was less than one-twentieth of those suffered by the Soviet Union. (See "The World Almanac of World War II," p. 614.)

The D-Day U.S./British invasion of France took place while the Soviet Red Army was battling 80% of Hitler’s army on the Eastern Front. If Hitler had conquered the world’s first communist-led country and millions of Nazi troops were turned loose on the West, they would have invaded and probably conquered the U.K. All those "Private Ryans" waiting to be saved would never have reached France. A British general said had Hitler defeated the Soviets, millions in Britain and the U.S. would have been killed. Far fewer "baby boomers" would have ever been born.

The Soviet workers and their Red Army, led by Stalin, saved humanity from the Nazis. Such was the magnificent role of our "technical ally."

U.S. and Nazi rulers were racing to produce the A-Bomb. Both would have used it against the USSR. Why wouldn’t a communist like Julius Rosenberg, seeing the embattled Soviet Union fighting the Nazis virtually by itself, want to help it develop such a weapon? "Treason" to the U.S. ruling class? Yes! Loyalty to the international working class? Absolutely!

Now the U.S. ruling class is surpassing Hitler, launching endless wars and mass murder for profits and world domination. Millions die because of capitalist-caused hunger, poverty, racism and unemployment. Since the defeat of the world communist movement, there is little opposition to its war machine. The only answer to this new fascist/imperialist monster is the building of a new international communist movement that can organize the world’s working class to do to U.S. bosses and all capitalists what the Soviet workers did to the Nazis.

Black GI’s Fought Nazis and U.S. Military’s Racism

(This continues the review of "American Patriots, The Story of Blacks in the Military," by Gail Buckley. The author depicts black soldiers trying to defend "their country," despite encountering virulent racism. She cites Colin Powell as the "heights" that black soldiers have achieved in the military and doesn’t indicate that patriotism serves the rulers or that U.S. imperialist wars were fought in the ruling class’s interests, although WWII had a distinct anti-fascist character. This series concentrates on the bravery of black soldiers despite intense racism. Our previous issue covered the Civil War, World War I and the Spanish Civil War.)

World War II

When WWII began, the U.S. armed forces were still segregated. White officers generally commanded all black troops. Lynchings were common on the home front. According to liberal President Roosevelt, "No black issue, from making lynching a federal crime to desegregating the military was more important than appeasing the southern wing of the Democratic Party." (p. 259)

In 1940, black unemployment was at 20%. Black workers referred to Roosevelt’s "New Deal" as "the dirty deal." Fifteen enlisted black Navy messmen — promised they’d learn a trade — wrote a letter to the Pittsburgh Courier (a black paper), warning others who enlisted that, "All they would become is seagoing bellhops, chambermaids and dishwashers." (p. 263)

Racism was intense. "In the winter of 1941…the military ordered ‘white blood’ only. Blood segregation was mandated by the military…" (p. 268) No "black blood" could be given to wounded white soldiers!

When USO entertainers put on shows for the troops, "black soldiers were forced to sit behind German…POWs." (p. 261) In 1943, the actress and singer Lena Horne (mother of this book’s author) refused to entertain at an Alabama army camp because German prisoners of war were seated up front and black soldiers in the back. Ms. Horne was kicked out of the USO (United Service Organization organizing wartime entertainment). After that she only entertained black troops.

"The 93rd [all-black] Division saw action under General Douglas MacArthur…but from Hawaii to Australia fought more white racists than Japanese." (p. 277)

In December 1944, the Germans’ counter-offensive, the so-called Battle of the Bulge, rocked Allied troops back on their heels. A desperate General Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of all Allied troops (and future President), allowed black troops to volunteer for combat; 2,221 did. But fighting alongside white soldiers would mean desegregation, so instead Eisenhower put them in all-black platoons under white commanders.

Two months earlier, in October, General Patton’s Third Army had bogged down in France’s Saar basin and needed replacements. The only combat armored units in the U.S. were black. The 761st tank battalion was selected. "When they moved by train to Fort Knox…the unit was ordered to pull down the shades, for Kentucky whites were in the habit of shooting at passing black troops." (p. 327)

The 761st was rushed to relieve the embattled white troops. After five furious days of fighting, they forced the Germans to retreat back into Germany. By April 27, the 761st crossed the Danube, spearheading the assault that, by early May of 1945, advanced into Austria. On May 6 they united with the westbound Soviet Red Army, in the hugely photographed meeting of East and West.

"Between March 31 and May 6, the 761st took 106,921 prisoners, an average daily rate of 2,813, including 20 German generals…[and] liberated the Gunskirchen concentration camp." (p. 331)

Eisenhower refused to award the 761st the Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC), although 12 white units received it. In 1978 they finally recieved the DUC for "extraordinary heroism," and "accomplishments [that] were truly magnificent as the successful crossing of the Rhine River into Germany was totally dependent upon the accomplishment of their mission."

"When the movie ‘Patton’ was released in 1970, no mention was made of the 761st…. They had…stayed longer on the front line than any other armored battalion…riding deeper into Germany. But only one black was portrayed in the film: Patton’s orderly." (p. 331)

Buckley concludes, "The 500,000 black American men and women who served in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific in the 1940s would have bitter memories of the military…. [which] enforced American-style racism wherever it went. Black GIs fought fascism on two fronts in World War II — at home and abroad, where, as often as not, the enemy wore an American uniform." (p. 261)

(Next issue: the Vietnam War and Gulf War I.)

THE FIRST U.S. HERO OF WORLD WAR II

"The first American hero of World War II was black. On December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller was a messman on the burning deck of the U.S.S. West Virginia. Miller,…son of a Texas sharecropper, …manned an anti-aircraft gun to bring down…four Japanese planes…. Miller had never been taught to fire the…gun; it was against Navy regulations for blacks to do so. Only when the ammunition was exhausted and the [battleship] was sinking beneath him did he abandon ship….

"The first Navy dispatches from Pearl Harbor described him as an ‘unidentified Negro messman.’ Apparently embarrassed that the first hero of the war was black, the Navy found a white hero in Captain Colin Kelly, killed on December 9 in a crash-dive onto [a] Japanese battleship….

"[Miller] remained a messman until he died [in] 1943, when all hands went down on the torpedoed carrier Liscome Bay."(p. 275)

The Secret War Against U.S. Military Veterans

In recent months thousands of young GI’s have been shipped to war in the Mid-East. Some won’t return. Those who do may become part of the rapidly growing number sickened by depleted uranium weapons and other weapons of mass destruction used by the U.S. military. These vets are also at risk from service cuts back home.

The government says it honors and cares for soldiers risking their lives in the bosses’ wars, while cutting veteran’s benefits. In Chicago, the Veterans Health Administration is closing the VA Lakeside Hospital, which just happens to sit on prime real estate sought by millionaire developers.

Meanwhile, a recent American Legion survey of over 3,000 veterans found the average vet waits seven months for an appointment. Then the VA reschedules 60% of the time, so the vet must wait another 2½ months for the new appointment!

According to the Chicago Tribune (5/11), "[Forrest] Costner, 55, who served in the Army’s 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969, tried to sign up for VA health care in November, 2000 when he began to worry about losing his job. Costner was still waiting for a VA appointment when his employer let him go in October [2002!]."

A cancer survivor who takes medication for diabetes and high blood pressure and who is still jobless, Costner has been paying $700 a month for insurance while the VA keeps him in limbo." The government tells you, ‘We’ll always be there for you when you need us’ when you go into the military, but it seems like once you’ve done the job for them you really don’t matter that much anymore."

The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled against aging veterans from World War II and the Korean War (Schism vs. the U.S.) Thousands of vets had been promised lifetime medical benefits when they enlisted. Now it’s "Sorry, we don’t have the money — you’re on your own."

As a protest sign said during an anti-war demonstration: "Rich man’s war, poor man’s blood." The billionaires running the government has no interest in the "promises" made to idealistic young military recruits. The sons and daughters of the working class are used and discarded when the new market, natural resource or other economic target has been captured. The bosses gorge themselves on oil profits while the veteran struggles for medical care.

The only war that makes sense for workers is a class war. The working class produces everything of value. It’s the autoworker or oil derrick operator or nurse who makes it happen, not the Exxon stockholder or hospital CEO. The soldiers carry the guns. When revolutionary ideas grow in soldiers’ minds, the generals get nervous. One day those in power will pay the price for their arrogance. They underestimate our ability to learn the lessons taught by today’s abuses. But we’re learning. We’ll turn their profit wars into class war — communist revolution for workers’ power.

LETTERS

Solidarity Needed vs. Racist Layoffs

Recently, Mayor Bloomberg announced the layoff of 2,000 school workers in the New York City Department of Education. They’re overwhelmingly black and Latin women. Some are school aides who monitor lunchrooms, playgrounds and assist in the front office, members of District Council 37. Others (paraprofessionals) assist teachers in the classroom are members of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). The attack on these workers illustrates the racism of the City’s cutbacks. However, scratching further one can see that Mayor Bloomberg and other Republicans may have another agenda.

School aides were introduced 30 years ago under the then Mayor Lindsay’s plan to decentralize the school system. After massive protests by black and Latin parents against their children’s’ inferior education, Lindsay (along with the Ford Foundation) pushed decentralization to take the heat off the central Board. Part of the "community control" plan was the hiring of school aides, mainly black and Latin workers. When the school reform movement was in its progressive stages the school aides were on the front lines in bringing in black, Latin and working-class history to the public schools.

Soon the Democratic bosses began to exercise power over the schools; community control became "Democratic Party control." Superintendents, principals and school aide positions are generally approved by the Democratic hacks, providing the Democrats with a certain mass base. Under the guise of "school reform," Bloomberg decided to weaken this base by layoffs and "restructuring" the Department of Education. First he hired Joel Klein, a former CEO. Now come the racist layoffs. UFT president Randi Weingarten has launched a lawsuit over the school-aide layoffs.

Lawsuits will not stop these cuts. Only solidarity among teachers, aides and parents can save these jobs.

NYC UFT Member

Friendship Grows From Struggle

A comrade and I recently visited with a laid-off construction worker. Joe reads CHALLENGE and took three to a youth group meeting he attends. He has come to a PLP forum and helped write and distribute a Party leaflet. We met Joe through the struggle over his wife’s firing. She was unable to win her job back, but the struggle put PLP on the map as a fighting organization. Whenever we fight racist injustice and exploitation, it counts toward the ultimate victory over our oppressors.

Our conversation with Joe was friendly and stimulating. He had been a member of the black Muslims under Elijah Mohammad, but left when Wallace Mohammad & Farrakan split into two factions.

We discussed how communists view religion and nationalism; ideologies that mislead workers and help the ruling class maintain its power. Black nationalism means black workers should ally with black bosses, as if exploitation is a function of color. Exploitation is built into capitalism, no matter what color our oppressors are.

Religion keeps our class in chains by telling us we have no control over our destiny, that an all-powerful spirit (god, Allah, Christ, etc.) controls all. The Russian and Chinese revolutions provide clear examples of how workers, under a communist party, were able to smash their capitalist oppressors. Under the right conditions, PLP will lead millions in the worldwide movement for a communist society. We can and will control our destiny.

Joe also wanted to discuss secret ruling class groups, like the Skull & Bones society, the Illuminati, and the Masons. I am not familiar with these groups, but hopefully, others can write to CHALLENGE and explain how they serve the bosses.

We need workers like Joe and his courageous wife to join us, and help lead the struggle for working-class justice. He really enjoyed watching the May Day video. Long live PLP and communist revolution!

A Comrade

JROTC Teaches Lies About Bosses’ Wars

Many of my friends active in the "peace movement" are thinking about the long-term problems of fighting imperialist wars, and are trying to figure out the reasons for these wars. This is a good development, as they realize that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are but two in a string of wars.

This has sparked many good discussions. I explain that these wars result from the inevitable crisis of capitalism and they’ll continue until a revolutionary movement led by communists wipes out capitalism. Although many of my friends are not yet convinced, they are open, and reading CHALLENGE with them has been very helpful.

Some people are active in a campaign to throw JROTC off high school campuses, leading to much discussion. JROTC is a class taught by retired military officers as a substitute for a Physical Education (PE). Students spend enough time marching around to satisfy the PE requirement, and a lot of time in class learning military organization, strategy and tactics, and how great U.S. imperialism is. It’s funded both by the military and the school district, and the former sees it as one of their best recruiting programs. In our district, it’s in schools with mostly black and Latin students.

My friends say JROTC is racist because it recruits largely black and Latino students for serial warfare, and sets low expectations in poor communities. They say that part of building an anti-war movement is to fight JROTC. I’ve commented that the worst thing about JROTC is not its recruitment of youth to the military — the economic situation today does that. The worst thing is political: its textbooks push patriotism and justify every imperialist adventure the U.S. has ever undertaken. Students are taught, first and foremost, to uncritically follow orders.

We know that working class youth — especially black and Latin — will join the military. U.S. imperialism relies on these youth to fight its wars. But will they enlist knowing they’re part of an international working class which has suffered from imperialism worldwide as well as in the U.S.? Or will they go on thinking the U.S. is the best of all possible societies and has the right to rule the rest of the world?

When they get to Iraq (or wherever the next war is) the struggle over what ideas they hold only sharpens. As occupation meets resistance, and soldiers continue to face attack from a hostile population, they face alternatives. Some realize they shouldn’t be there and begin to demand to be sent home. Others are won to racism and begin to see the entire conquered population as the enemy. As things sharpen, these choices become sharper. In Vietnam, U.S. troops massacred civilians. My Lai was only the most famous. There was also massive resistance to fighting and a total break-down of authority — GI’s defying their officers. How soldiers react in these situations is largely determined by what they think about the world.

So I tell my friends that the fight is not to keep youth out of the military, but to educate them about the nature of U.S. imperialism and to win them to an anti-racist, pro-working class point of view. We should debate JROTC teachers in the schools, and require that all students in JROTC classes be given an anti-imperialist history of the U.S. to combat the military’s lies. We have the truth on our side, and we should fight for the allegiance of the youth.

A Comrade

CHALLENGE comment:

The comrade’s point is well-taken. It is true that soldiers’ reactions are influenced by how they see the world, but their reactions also have much to do with the international class struggle. The old communist movement led its last great battles during the late 1960’s.

In China, millions of Red Guards were rebelling for communism against the capitalist roaders who today have turned China into a massively exploited, cheap-labor country. In Vietnam, the communist-led resistance was actually defeating U.S. imperialism. Rebellion was occurring worldwide as millions protested against imperialist war and racism. The huge urban rebellions against police brutality and racist unemployment in the U.S. also influenced U.S. soldiers, particularly black GI’s. For these soldiers the enemy wasn’t the Vietcong but their own officers and the racist military. Half a million U.S. soldiers deserted; many fragged (shot) their own officers and sabotaged six aircraft carriers. This was the birth of the Vietnam Syndrome which the U.S. bosses so greatly fear, and which slowly but surely is beginning to haunt them once again (see front page).

Cops Run Scared When Workers Unite

Our city's public hospital saw the meaning of "workers power" when they fired one of our co-workers.

The day after the firing she came to the hospital cafeteria. The hospital had been leafleted that morning so everyone knew she was coming.

"The cafeteria looks like Fort Knox," one worker said. A group of us walked with her into the cafeteria. Hospital security and city police were waiting for us, along with the union recording secretary who tried to stop us, claiming what we were doing was "illegal."

We had a petition for everyone to sign demanding our co-worker be reinstated. After she explained to Security why she was there, they decided not to act against her so the "suits" came in.

The Chief of Security and his assistant tried to get us to leave the cafeteria. Many people gathered around us. Security and the cops were running scared. At one point a cop yelled into his radio, "All units to the cafeteria." No one paid any attention. Everyone was asking for the petition. There were about 40 people around us, telling our co-worker they supported her. People were ignoring the cops. Workers were telling her, "If you don't come back to work, we'll go on strike." After about an hour we decided to leave, but the rally continued outside for another hour.

When talking to other workers later that week, one said it reminded her of the civil rights movement days. When she was seven years old she had seen Martin Luther King, Jr. speak at a church. She said she was glad she came [to this action] to let them know "we're going to fight." Another worker told me, "She didn't have to be terminated so we're going to fight for her. I didn't feel intimidated. I felt I could fight. The struggle for the leadership of our union will continue. The president of the union has decided to ally with the bosses, to keep peace with them. We choose to fight with the workers."

Most of these workers read our paper and we're pushing forward with them. The next step is to recruit them to the Party.

A Hospital Worker

Is what's good for the company good for the workers?

In September the company president had a meeting at the factory where I work to announce it was growing and was building a factory in Mexico. Most of the workers cheered. They thought that what was good for the company would be good for us; 85% of the 600 workers are from Mexico. Many felt proud that the new factory was in "their country." When I cautioned the workers not to be so happy, some said I felt that way only because I am from another country.

In January workers from the new factory came here for training. They said they make a flat $6/day, less than dollar an hour. We get $8/hr. plus production bonuses. My co-workers began to worry. One said, "The company can get rid of one of us and hire 10 workers in Mexico for the same money."

In May the company laid off all 80 workers supplied by an outside agency. Management also announced that a job performed by 320 workers here was also being done in Mexico, and that workers on that job here who made three mistakes would be fired. Most workers doing this job have worked for this boss for more than seven years, some for as many as 25 years. "Auditors" began watching everyone and making notes, but not saying anything. So far, three workers have been fired. There are rumors that the entire factory will close in October.

Many workers are now telling me that what I said last October was true. What's good for the company is NOT good for the workers. More workers are understanding that Mexican nationalism - like all nationalism - is harmful to workers. Five workers have been reading CHALLENGE.

We plan to ask these five workers to join PLP and help us increase our circulation. We also plan to demand that the union - which has done nothing - meet, prepare a defense against contract violations, firings and layoffs, and get accurate information from management about its intentions. We're also organizing a barbeque to get the workers together away from the factory. We have to figure out a way to unite with the workers in the factory in Mexico.

An Internationalist Worker

U.S. Rulers Have Long History of : Weapons Of Mass Distortion

PLP Leads Shut-down of KKK in Illinois

U.S. Road Map to War Filled With Potholes

a href="#Back GE Workers’ Fight vs. Medical, Job Cuts">"ack GE Workers’ Fight vs. Medical, Job Cuts

a href="#Bosses Say Cut Back; Union Hacks Say ‘O.K.’">Bo"ses Say Cut Back; Union Hacks Say ‘O.K.’

Immigrants, Citizens Must Unite vs. Racist Border Killers

ESL Students Force Out Racist Professor

a href="#Striking Teachers Confront Peru’s Army, Union Hacks">"triking Teachers Confront Peru’s Army, Union Hacks

a href="#Book Review: Black GI’s and the Fight vs. Rampant Racism">"ook Review: Black GI’s and the Fight vs. Rampant Racism

a href="#‘Free Trade’ War For South America’s Markets">‘Fre" Trade’ War For South America’s Markets

a href="#The Truth Behind ‘Support Our Troops’">Th" Truth Behind ‘Support Our Troops’

a href="#The Rosenbergs — Loyal to International Working Class, Not to Bosses">"he Rosenbergs — Loyal to International Working Class, Not to Bosses

U.S. Rulers Loot Social Security

Tax Cuts And Budget Deficits

401(K)ick in the Head

a href="#1980’s Tax ‘Cut’ was Hike for Workers">1980"s Tax ‘Cut’ was Hike for Workers

Red Eye On The News

LETTERS

a href="#‘Pushing 70’ and Still Anti-Fascist">‘P"shing 70’ and Still Anti-Fascist

AIDS Article Got It Wrong

Look to Workers Not to Democrats

Revolution A Universal Language

Bosses Cry Wolf(owitz)

a href="#U.S. Hiring India’s Army to Police Iraq">".S. Hiring India’s Army to Police Iraq

How I Became A Communist

a href="#China’s Red ‘Barefoot Docs’ Would Have Stopped SARS">Chin"’s Red ‘Barefoot Docs’ Would Have Stopped SARS

---

U.S. Rulers Have Long History of : Weapons Of Mass Distortion

After two months of occupation in Iraq, the U.S. military still hasn’t produced the "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) that supposedly justified Bush’s war. This failure has generated a lot of hype in the international media. A major scandal is brewing. The New York Times piously editorializes about the "good word of the United States." (6/8). Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report have all run major pieces on "possible" government falsifications about Iraqi WMD.

Let’s assume Bush & Co. lied through their teeth. This is standard operating procedure when the big bosses want to launch an imperialist war. U.S. rulers are particularly adept at it.

In 1964, President Johnson manufactured a North Vietnamese "attack" in the Gulf of Tonkin as a cover for escalating the Vietnam War. Millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of U.S. troops died in the process.

In 1984, Reagan concocted a preposterous story about Cuban weapons in Grenada in order to invade that Caribbean island and change its political leadership. The U.S. Navy flattened the island in the interest of "democracy."

In 1989, Bush, Sr. used Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega’s involvement in drug smuggling, which Bush had tolerated all along, as an excuse to invade Panama and counter a Japanese bankers’ financial take-over while eliminating a political embarrassment and killing thousands of civilians.

In 1991, Bush, Sr. had a U.S. diplomat sucker Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait, providing the U.S. an excuse to launch Desert Storm I. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians were murdered.

In 1999, Clinton used the Big Lie of "human rights" to turn the former Yugoslavia into rubble. The real reason for that war was to prevent former Serbian president Milosevic from becoming a rival player in the oil pipeline business.

U.S. lies and provocations to justify wars of conquest go all the way back to the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, which gave U.S. rulers an excuse to grab a chunk of Spain’s colonial empire.

So one could say that Bush, Jr.’s fabrications about Iraqi WMD are just another day at the office. But this scandal doesn’t seem to be going away, and the working class has a clear interest in grasping its essential meaning. If we don’t make the effort to do so, we risk falling into a deadly trap that liberals in the U.S. ruling class are trying to set for us.

The whole point about WMD was to justify the war and motivate the U.S. military and civilian population to accept casualties in the name of a higher good. Well, U.S. casualties were minimal this time. But conquest won’t always come so cheap. Already, the U.S. occupiers are taking daily casualties in a conflict that now appears to have turned into a guerrilla war. Iraq, after Afghanistan, represents merely the second stage of a sweeping U.S. plan to rule the world by force. A war against Iran and an occupation of Saudi Arabia aren’t out of the question in the not-so-distant future. The U.S. military has now ringed all of former Soviet Central Asia. The bosses are making noise about dealing with North Korea. On the more distant horizon lies a potential direct conflict with some combination of the U.S.’s main imperialist competitors. China, Russia, France and Germany could be in the mix.

CHALLENGE can’t predict the exact scenarios or timetables. But Bush’s invasion of Iraq must not be considered a one-shot deal. As Stratfor.com (intelligence news service) says, this is "a war that will last for many years." (6/5)

Viewed in this context, the mounting WMD-gate scandal appears as a fight among the big bosses over how best to inspire the working class to fight and die for the strategic goal of maintaining U.S. world domination. Bush’s detractors within the ruling class don’t give a damn about the moral implications of lying. They do it all the time themselves. However, they worry deeply about motivating workers to line up as enthusiastic cannon-fodder for future wars. One New York Times columnist frets: "…if [WMD] are not found, some…worry about what might happen if Mr. Bush or a successor tried to rally American or international backing for another war — say, with Iran or North Korea — using disputed evidence to buttress the case." (6/8). The Times editorial chimes in: "The issue goes to the heart of American leadership," and agonizes about what might happen to U.S. credibility "when real threats materialize," if a U.S. president "squanders…credibility." Stratfor is a little more direct than the Times: "[Bush’s] use of smoke and mirrors to justify a war in which Iraq was simply a single campaign …created a situation in which the American public had one perception of the reason for the war while the war’s planner had another…[T]his is a dangerous situation to have created." (6/5).

Hovering over the big bosses’ heads is the fear that "Vietnam Syndrome" — the unwillingness of troops to fight for U.S. imperialism — is alive and well within the U.S. military and society at large. This fear is justified! The rulers would love to whip up a Hitler-like wave of racist patriotism to fuel their drive for world conquest. So far, they haven’t done too well. Bush’s awkward WMD fictions prove the point. Now the liberals (Kerry, et al.) are floating gimmicks like "national service" to mislead us into marching for their agenda.

Ultimately, the rulers have no choice other than racing from one Big Lie to another. No war they launch can serve the interests of the working class. Communism remains the only goal worth fighting and dying for. As the WMD-gate scandal sharpens and the rulers contrive new schemes to gull us into their bloody wars , CHALLENGE will continue to expose their true imperialist motives. Joining and building the Progressive Labor Party is the only sure path to sharpen the class struggle, leading the working class to a communist future.

PLP Leads Shut-down of KKK in Illinois

CHICAGO, IL May 31- "PLP in Berwyn! About damn time!" That’s what a worker declared after receiving CHALLENGE and a flyer, as hundreds of workers and students showed up to shut down the KKK today. Despite the efforts of politicians, press and religious leaders to pacify workers, many community people responded to the militant leadership of PLP in chants, speeches, and action. Many realized that simply ignoring the Klan is deadly.

Blocks from the rally, a few cop-protected Nazis were beat down while our group chanted, "Death to the Nazis! Power to the Workers!" One comrade at her first anti-Klan action said, "These racists need to be taught a lesson. A beat-down! Now that’s a lesson!"

Upon reaching the rally the cops herded the anti-racists into pens like criminals. Cops protect these racists and uphold the capitalist system that divides workers, black against white, and citizen against immigrant to generate maximum profits. Eight anti-racists were arrested, including two PLP members. A few workers gave us their names and numbers.

Fighting these racist scum is good, but not enough. This rally comes while U.S. rulers are struggling for control of oil around the world to maintain global dominance. The war in Iraq, which killed thousands of Iraqi workers, has temporarily secured Exxon/Mobil’s oil profits in the Middle East. But it has also intensified the conflict between U.S. bosses and their European rivals.

To wage profit wars abroad the rulers need fascism at home. This means repressive laws, cutbacks in healthcare and education, unemployment, and racist terror against black workers and youth and immigrants. Capitalism needs KKK racism to divide the working class and win workers to fight in oil wars overseas.

Only communist revolution can smash their government, cops and courts and end increased racist terror and imperialist war. Only then can we build a world that serves the international working class. JOIN PLP!

U.S. Road Map to War Filled With Potholes

Iraq remains so dangerous that its "liberator" George Bush can’t even set foot there. Unable to ensure their boss’s safety on the ground, Bush’s handlers had to settle for a less than triumphal fly-over of Iraq during his recent Mideast trip. After a relatively easy campaign in Iraq and buying off Saddam’s top generals, while killing at least 5,000 civilians, U.S. forces now face guerrilla warfare. Ambushing Iraqi holdouts are killing GIs at a rate only slightly lower than in the original invasion.

The situation in Iraq reflects troubles confronting U.S. rulers throughout the Middle East. They need to control its oil by force in order to maintain their superpower dominance over foreign rivals. Washington has a two-fold strategy: ringing the Middle East with staging bases for future invasions, and relying on local regimes to impoverish and terrorize workers. Both schemes are creating increasing instability in the region.

Israel is supposed to guard the western flank of the U.S.’s Mideast oil province and suppress the Palestinian segment of the Arab working class. But, directly due to U.S. action, mounting internal violence is dashing U.S. rulers’ hopes for a stable, reliable Israel. U.S threats against Iran after the Iraq invasion only emboldened the Islamic Hamas faction, which gets support from Iran’s ayatollahs, who are themselves in league with French and Russian oil bosses. (The Russians are helping Iran build a nuclear plant, defying U.S. protests.) Hamas is boycotting Bush’s Israeli-Palestinian "peace" talks and has launched a new series of suicidal attacks on Israelis.

The poverty and misery at the heart of Palestinian workers’ current unrest goes back to the U.S.’s first invasion of Iraq. At that time, under Washington’s instructions, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia expelled some 600,000 Palestinian workers and cut off financial aid to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) and Jordan. U.S. bosses feared the workers would side with Iraq. Many of these displaced workers returned home to the West Bank and Gaza.

Afghanistan is not proving to be the military stronghold U.S. rulers hoped for. It sits at the Persian Gulf oilfields’ eastern edge and contains strategic oil and gas pipeline routes. U.S. forces there have not succeeded in eradicating Al Qaeda-Taleban forces, which killed four German soldiers last week.

The re-emerging threat from Al Qaeda is, in fact, forcing the Pentagon to withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, the crown jewel of the Mideast oil treasure. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is beefing up its presence in neighboring Bahrain and Qatar. Al Qaeda represents Saudi capitalists who don’t belong to the royal family and want to take over the vast Saudi oil industry for themselves. The U.S.-led butchery in Iraq did the opposite of intimidating Al Qaeda, as the latter’s recent terror attacks in Morocco and Saudi Arabia show.

The Al Qaeda menace also has U.S. bosses rethinking their long-standing love match with the Saudi royal family. On June 5, Saudi Aramco and Exxon Mobil scrapped a $15 billion natural gas deal that the house of Saud had pushed. One reason was that Exxon wanted a bigger profit share than the royals wanted to give. But, in addition, U.S. rulers no longer seem willing to guarantee the royal family’s survival indefinitely.

Given the combination of the U.S. rulers’ need to control the Middle East by military intervention along with the repressiveness of local governments there, Stratfor.com, an intelligence news service, (6/6) concludes, "The stage is now set for upheaval and change." This means more imperialist invasions and more popular uprisings.

The working class of the Middle East, led by oil workers, has a long pro-communist history. Unfortunately, the opportunism of the old communist movement has left the field open today to the local fundamentalist and nationalist bosses. It’s time to build a new communist movement based on the unity of all workers and their allies against ALL local bosses and the imperialists, with the goal of fighting for a communist Middle East.

Patriotism Is Dangerous to Your Health:

a name="Back GE Workers’ Fight vs. Medical, Job Cuts">">"ack GE Workers’ Fight vs. Medical, Job Cuts

LYNN, MA, June 7 — Today nearly 3,000 General Electric workers from Lynn, Cleveland, Louisville and many other Eastern and Mid-Western cities rallied in preparation for a possible strike of 24,000 workers nationwide. They’re fighting increasing healthcare costs, attacks on retirees, and plans to move production to countries where workers get $2/hr or less. PLP’ers joined the rally to support the workers and bring them a message of revolution.

We distributed CHALLENGE and several hundred leaflets exposing GE’s role as the most profitable weapons manufacturer in the world, which the bosses use in their imperialist slaughters. GE also owns NBC, a key part of the bosses’ pro-war propaganda machine.

PLP called on workers to strike GE and damage the bosses’ ability to wage unending wars. In contrast, a Lynn congressman jingoistically proclaimed his support for GE workers because they make weapons (the Lynn plant’s specialty). He said the country has recently "gained a great appreciation for our men and women in uniform," and those workers "who make the weapons who keep them safe." We also revealed the role of the IUE hacks in screwing workers for over 50 years (see CHALLENGE, 6/11) and called on workers to reject them.

Most of our leaflets and nearly all our CHALLENGES were taken by the mostly black workers from Cleveland and the integrated group from Louisville. The Cleveland workers supported the 2001 Cincinnati rebellion against a cop murderer and embraced our ideas about fighting racist police terror and the KKK. They were enthusiastic about striking GE. The Louisville workers welcomed our message attacking the police killing of GE striker Michelle Rogers in January. Many agreed that the cops’ job is to protect the bosses, their property and their scabs. Many of these workers were her friends. One contact came from that group.

While the hacks said they mourned sister Rogers’ death, they said nothing about the role of the police, despite the fact that the Louisville workers face regular harassment from the cops and the Klan, and periodic police raids on their local office. When the rally ended, the hacks "thanked" the police and praised them for being AFL-CIO members. The Louisville workers laughed because they knew better.

Most workers from the mostly white Lynn plant refused our leaflets, some with hostility. Many wore shirts decorated with American flags, equating patriotism with fighting corporate greed. We were attacked for being communists and opposing the war. Many of these workers were unhappy about the idea of a strike, some clinging to the illusion that GE could come around without one.

The positive response from the Cleveland and Louisville workers demonstrates that industrial workers, especially those from plants that are integrated or have a large black workforce, are open to our revolutionary communist message. These workers will be the key force for making revolution. Workers everywhere must back GE workers if they strike, helping build class-consciousness and solidarity. Class contradictions can become clearer during strikes.

During the last national GE strike, during the Vietnam War in 1969, PLP led 10,000 workers and students to break away from a pacifist anti-war demonstration to march to the Labor Department in support of the strikers. We organized workers and students to walk the picket lines nation-wide under the banner, "War-maker, Strike-breaker! Smash GE!" and built a red-led worker-student alliance. Workers, soldiers, and students at war-making facilities and institutions can defeat the bosses’ war machine.

a name="Bosses Say Cut Back; Union Hacks Say ‘O.K.’"></">Bo"ses Say Cut Back; Union Hacks Say ‘O.K.’

LOS ANGELES, June 9 — Mass layoffs, cuts in wages, benefits and services, hikes in sales, excise and vehicle taxes — workers are MAD. So what’s California union leaders’ "answer"? Some mild protests to let off steam but stick with the Democrats, accept some layoffs and "not-so-bad" cuts.

SEIU Local 660 and other public worker unions are mobilizing a June 16-17 protest against these attacks. But there’s a twist. The union leaders are proposing a sales tax increase to bail out the bosses from the budget deficit, a racist tax hike falling heaviest on workers, especially on black, Latin and immigrant workers.

Meanwhile, the "rallying cry" of the state’s largest union, the California School Employees Association (CSEA) is, "A Fair Share, Not the Whole Share"! They want job and wage-cuts only "in proportion to" their numbers in the workforce and to their salaries. This "bargaining position," starting from acceptance of layoffs, limits workers’ ability to fight back.

In 1865, Karl Marx rallied the International Workingman’s Association with: "Instead of… ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they [the working class] ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system!"

The working class is still struggling valiantly for a "fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work," to obtain more of the value of our labor power. Some workers have wrested some concessions; most live in deepening poverty. Workers have not won the freedom to be gained only from ending the wage system. Since workers produce all value, we should reap the FULL fruits of that work and collectively decide its distribution according to need. That’s real fairness. That’s communism.

SEIU says, "California is facing the worst budget crisis in our lifetimes." Sure, a quarter-century of tax breaks for corporations, using federal funds for wars for oil profits, plus the current recession, threaten tens of thousands of jobs.

California bosses are locked in a bitter dogfight over this crisis. Democrat Governor Gray Davis, elected by the state’s largest unions, wants some tax increases and big budget cuts. Republican legislators want even deeper cuts but no tax increases. Either way, workers lose. But many workers are ready to fight back.

We need to strike against the cutbacks; to organize the unorganized and build support among workers and students who use public services, to feel the power of a united working class. A handful of Republicans in Sacramento can shut down the budget process but workers can shut down the state!

However, that’s not what union leaders are planning. Instead, they’re lining us up behind Davis’s Democratic Party.

CSEA’s State President, Clyde Rivers, criticized the bashing of Davis, saying 40% of the state budget goes to education and we’re "only" taking 4% of the cuts. "The money has to come from somewhere," he says. Not a word about uniting with other workers to fight the bosses’ war budget or the huge give-backs to the rich. No attacking the capitalist system that makes profits at the expense of workers’ education and health.

Meanwhile, liberal LA Democrat Jackie Goldberg told community college students to contact State representatives, especially Republicans and, "Ask them to vote for tax increases."

These liberal Democrats, who the union honchos cozy up to, like all politicians are lap dogs of the banks and big corporations. When union leaders agree to sales tax hikes and "fair share" deals and "proportionate" cuts, the bosses smell blood and take advantage of the workers’ weak position to demand more — while the banks rake in billions in profits from interest.

Trying to save our jobs by saving "our" schools, or "our" companies, or "our" country, only helps the capitalist class that runs these schools, owns these companies and controls their country.

California’s budget crisis is part of capitalism’s general world crisis. Under pressure from international competition, U.S. bosses are squeezing the working class here both for immediate gains and to pay for the war machine they need to defend their profit empire overseas.

We must win workers to struggle against these attacks and sharply oppose the pro-capitalist union leaders who would mislead us into collaborating in our own exploitation. Out of these struggles we can and must recruit workers to PLP to fight for communism, the only answer to the bosses’ crisis.

Immigrants, Citizens Must Unite vs. Racist Border Killers

LOS ANGELES, June 7 — In the past month, another 23 immigrant workers died trying to cross the border from Mexico — 19 inside a trailer abandoned in Texas, three others in a rail car and another murdered by a racist Arizona rancher who said, "I thought it was a wild boar and I shot."

These deaths add to the untold atrocities perpetrated by the rotten racist capitalist system against the international working class. For the bosses’ profit system, a workers’ life is worthless, whether from Mexico, Central America, Afghanistan or Iraq.

The number of dead and arrested immigrants increases yearly. Both the hated Migra (Immigration Service) and the racist anti-immigrant groups are part of the government’s fascist build-up, intensifying attacks against immigrant workers. This opens the door to attacking all workers. The terror and racism at the border help the bosses depress immigrant workers’ wages still lower, reducing wages for all workers combined with mass layoffs and cuts in all public services.

Military Technology Oppresses Immigrant Workers

The fascist group "American Border Patrol" led by racist Glen Spencer (former head of "Voices of Citizens Together") in the Arizona area is using remote control airplanes (drones) to patrol the border and detect those trying to cross it. These spy planes, used in Afghanistan and Iraq, are connected with satellites and control points on the ground.

"The help that we get [from Border Patrol officials] is very useful," says Spencer. The government is militarizing the border using racist civilian groups, providing them with the most advanced technology to beat and capture immigrants.

Another anti-immigrant racist, Roger Barnet, brags he’s captured more than 10,000 immigrant workers in the last four years, and has forced many to walk long distances as punishment. Many have been beaten. Barnet’s been accused of killing immigrant workers who’ve crossed his path.

The bosses and their government don’t want to stop the flow of low-paid immigrants, but do want to terrorize them into accepting, super-exploitation. Many immigrant farm workers, restaurant and garment workers don’t even receive minimum wages.

These sharpening racist, fascist attacks can lead to more intense class struggle against the bosses and their capitalist system. Both immigrant and citizen workers are preparing to form groups at work to fight over the long-term, both in union and non-union shops. We’ll give these racists what they deserve. Several years ago hundreds of citizen and immigrant workers beat the racist followers of Spencer and Barnett. But ultimately workers must fight to destroy this murderous system, its profits and borders, with communist revolution. Our condolences to the families of these workers who died on the altar of profits. We also offer them our commitment to fight to sweep the filth of capitalism off the face of the earth.

ESL Students Force Out Racist Professor

I’m an ESL teacher in NYC. Our class has 24 students, all women. There are six Muslim students, from Yemen, Pakistan and Kosovo. The Yemeni students wear the burka. We’ve become like family, discovering many things we have in common — our attitudes and values regarding our families and struggles for economic survival. As the war in Iraq unfolded we shared fears, anger and our political outlooks. All opposed the "imperialist war for oil."

Last November, as a professor at the school passed two of the Yemeni students she spat, "I’m so sick of this shit, these terrorist bombers. I’m so angry I could kill them!"

Another teacher and some of her GED students witnessed this attack. When I arrived I was furious. We immediately responded — all of our students wrote letters, insisting the professor be fired. We demanded that security remove her, saying we wouldn’t continue class if she were in the same wing. Later the college "diversity office" interviewed us. As we planned an article in the college paper and to contact the campus Muslim Student Organization to sponsor a teach-in, the teacher abruptly resigned and left the school.

My students, all immigrants, hugged one another, cried and cheered. They all said this could have happened to any of them. I called the families of my Muslim students urging them to support the students, to tell them of our support and to guarantee that none of the students drop out of the class.

Later I told this story at an anti-war conference where the group was planning to combat the fascist Patriot Act and Homeland Security. I told my students about the Conference. Four have become CHALLENGE readers.

The students have selected two stories written by their classmates to present at the end-of-the-year celebration. One was about Ramadan written by a young woman recently arrived from Yemen. The camaraderie and respect, the collective approach to discussing our political and cultural outlooks and the willingness to fight back is a vivid expression of working-class solidarity and internationalism. The classroom truly presents workers, students and Party members with great opportunities. It is the job of Party members to seize these opportunities.

A comrade

a name="Striking Teachers Confront Peru’s Army, Union Hacks">">"triking Teachers Confront Peru’s Army, Union Hacks

LIMA, PERU, June 10 — This past weekend teachers voted to continue their strike, defying their leadership’s agreement to a deal with the government of Alejandro Toledo, the former World Bank official. Rank-and-file teachers across the country rejected the sellout by the Patria Roja (Red Fatherland) fake leftist group which controls the executive board of SUTEP (the teachers’ union). The deal offered teachers a monthly increase of 100 soles ($29), the same amount first proposed by the government. The only "gains" were for the union leaders, particularly the one making them part of the government-run National Education Council.

The strike itself was launched only because of rank-and-file pressure. The leadership decided to support a strike only a few days before it began early in May, in order to maintain control. During the strike, only the rank-and-file teachers fought to expand it and make it more militant. The government then ordered a state of emergency and called out the army with its tanks. In the city of Puno, when students supporting the strike confronted the army, one — Edy Qilca — was shot and killed. Later in the area of Comas, near Lima, Mateo Jiménez, a striking teacher, was almost killed when he was shot by the army.

The radicalization of teachers, students and workers forced the CGTP (the National Labor Federation) to call a mass march of over 10,000 workers and youth on June 4, defying the state of emergency. Fearing the growth and militancy of the movement, and the pressure for a nation-wide general strike, the union hacks and the government made their deal.

This struggle has again demonstrated the universal role of union bureaucrats, whose main job always seems to be to betray workers. Contrary to fake leftists, like those leading the SUTEP, true communists support the best class interests of workers, particularly the most militant ones. Rather than making deals with the bosses, communists attempt to turn these mass strikes into a school for communism: teaching workers the need to fight for a society without any bosses.

a name="Book Review: Black GI’s and the Fight vs. Rampant Racism">">"ook Review: Black GI’s and the Fight vs. Rampant Racism

"American Patriots — The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm," by Gail Buckley catalogues the depths of racism perpetrated on black people by the U.S. ruling class. However, she uses Colin Powell’s rise through the ranks as a thread throughout the book to symbolize the "equality" achieved by black soldiers. She lacks a class analysis and dwells on many individual heroes, hardly relating the class content of various imperialist wars. At the same time the book gives a fairly decent treatment of the role played by communists in fighting racism in the military. Communists organized the first integrated combat unit of black and white soldiers in U.S. history commanded by a black officer, in the anti-fascist Spanish Civil War.

This review will deal only with some highlights of some of the wars covered in this 500-page book, including examples of black soldiers’ bravery in the face of enormous racism.

The Civil War

Initially, this was a "white man’s war" to abolish slavery. Black people were barred from the Union Army. Northern General McClellan returned runaway slaves to their Southern masters! In 1861, Lincoln fired General John Fremont when he proclaimed that all slaves in Missouri who took up arms for the North would be freed.

Karl Marx warned in the New York Herald, that the North could not win the Civil War unless it admitted black soldiers. After Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery, 180,000 black soldiers flooded the Union Army and turned the tide in favor of the North. Although always commanded by white officers, these soldiers were among the most heroic in defeating the Confederate Army.

World War I

The racist Wilson administration restricted black soldiers to menial tasks. The only ones to serve in combat did so under the command of the French Army. General John Pershing, commander of all U.S. troops in France, distributed "Secret Information Concerning Black American Troops" to the French military: "The black man is regarded…as an inferior being…constantly censured for his want of intelligence…The vices of the Negro are a constant menace to the American…We must not eat with them, must not shake hands or meet with them outside…military service…"

The French burned this racist directive, welcomed black soldiers with open arms and acknowledged them as heroes. These black troops spent more consecutive time at the front lines than any U.S. soldiers. "New York’s 369th National Guard regiment [was] the most decorated American unit of the war" but due "to U.S. pressure was denied permission to march in the Paris victory parade."

Meanwhile, 100 black people were lynched in the South during U.S. participation in WWI. When a black soldier in the 24th Infantry was arrested for aiding a black woman being beaten by the Houston police, black soldiers from Camp Logan marched on the police station. In the ensuing battle, five cops and four soldiers were killed. The entire 24th was shipped to Arizona for the largest court-martial in U.S. history. Thirteen soldiers were sentenced to death and forty-one to life imprisonment. Three were executed. Twenty years later those in prison were released.

The Spanish Civil War, 1936 To 1938

This war did not involve the U.S. Army but it was the first war in which black officers from the U.S. commanded integrated units of black and white soldiers. The Spanish people were fighting the aggression of the fascist Franco army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini. A U.S. government embargo barred aid to the anti-fascist forces, objectively helping the fascists. Communists from many countries volunteered in international brigades to fight Franco. The "out-manned and out-machined" anti-fascist troops were able to last three years due to "the heroism of the Spanish people, Soviet material aid and the International Brigades." This was the first armed struggle against rising fascism in Europe.

It was in the Lincoln Brigade that the integration of U.S. citizen-soldiers took place, led by black communist officers. One hundred black volunteers joined the Lincoln Brigade. Oliver Law, the first black commander of an integrated U.S. unit, was killed in action. Vaughn Love expressed what many felt: "We were all deep revolutionaries. We thought, ‘We have to get to the front and kill these fascists!’…I was through with the system. I knew it didn’t work and I was thinking in terms of changing society — to change the world."

When the survivors of the Lincoln Brigades offered themselves as a group to the U.S. Army in World War II, they were rejected because they would have been the only integrated unit in the U.S. military.

(Next issue: World War II, the Vietnam War and Gulf War I.)

a name="‘Free Trade’ War For South America’s Markets"></a>"Free Trade’ War For South America’s Markets

South America is now being pummeled by all the contradictions of world capitalism. On the one hand, workers and their allies are fighting back against their bosses, who are trying to make them pay for the system’s economic problems. Recently we’ve seen mass strikes and rebellions in Bolivia (Feb.) and Peru (May). These struggles oppose the free-market attacks by Bolivia’s President Lozada (a multi-millionaire) and Peru’s President Toledo (a former World Bank official).

While workers are paying for the bosses’ economic crisis, foreign investors are turning increasingly to Latin America, sharpening the rivalry among different imperialists and their local allies.

On June 9, Colin Powell attended a meeting of the Organization of American States in Chile. Several days before, Chile’s "socialist" President Lagos officially joined NAFTA. (The Bush administration had delayed Chile’s admission because Lagos refused to support the Iraq war.) Powell said that now, after the Iraqi conflict, the U.S. was ready to pay more attention to Latin America.

The Bush administration is fighting for a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement, run by the U.S. But they have serious opposition, led by Brazil’s Sao Paulo bourgeoisie, the most powerful capitalist group in Latin America and probably in the so-called developing world. The Sao Paulo bosses fully support Brazil’s "socialist" President, Lula. The Brazilian bosses want their own free trade agreement — MERCOSUR — and not a U.S.-run one. They’re fighting mad because U.S. rulers talk about free trade but impose heavy restrictions on Brazilian steel, oranges and other exports to the U.S.

Brazil’s bosses are supported by a goodly section of Argentina’s ruling class. Kichner, who won the Argentine presidency after defeating U.S. ally Menem, is also pushing for MERCOSUR. Argentina’s bosses cannot forget that when the December 2001 mass rebellion overthrew free marketeer De la Rúa, and the Argentine economy was in the dumps, the Bush administration told them "tough luck." In defiance of the Bushites, Kirchner invited Fidel Castro to his inauguration, even allowing him to speak at a mass public rally organized by his local supporters. (Fidel did not utter the "R" word — revolution — once.)

These pro-MERCOSUR bosses, including Venezuela’s Chavez, are not anti-imperialist. They just want a bigger piece of the pie for themselves. They will deal with whichever rulers give them the best deal at any particular time. Kirchner’s new government includes representatives from JP Morgan Chase Bank. Lula has just lost the support of part of his working-class base and of the massive MST (Landless Peasant Movement) because of his imposition of International Monetary Fund austerity measures. Chavez never stopped supplying the U.S. with oil during the Iraq war and is now making a deal with a consortium led by former Republican Presidential candidate Jack Kemp to sell oil to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Other p0layers in this include Germany, and to a lesser extent China. Germany is putting the finishing touches on a free trade agreement with MERCOSUR. The Sao Paulo bourgeoisie is negotiating with Ludwig Braun, President of Germany’s Confederation of Industry and Commerce. In a recent conference in Frankfurt, German bosses and bankers approved the treaty with MERCOSUR and asked the Berlin government to sign it as soon as possible. They see MERCOSUR as a way to end the stagnation infecting the German economy. In 2002, Germany’s trade with Latin America reached 27.3 billion Euros (22.7 US$). Brazil and Mexico were Germany’s biggest trade partners. Deutche Bank wants to set up branches in Argentina and Brazil once the post-World War II restrictions are lifted.

Meanwhile, Europe’s Airbus is competing with Boeing for the lucrative sale of new planes to Brazilian airlines. China also wants to increase its trade in cattle, agricultural and other products.

So while the local bosses and the imperialists wheel and deal, battling over markets, cheap labor, trade and resources, workers suffer increasing misery. While workers and their allies are fighting back, they must be wary of any nationalist "saviors" who want to use workers’ anger for their own capitalist interests. Early in 2000, a mass uprising by rural workers from Ecuador’s Indigenous areas in alliance with some nationalist and anti-U.S. bosses, overthrew the President and briefly seized the government. They all were betrayed by a general who claimed he was on their side and then sold them out to the U.S. embassy and local bosses. Another officer, Lt.-Col. Lucio Gutierrez, also joined the rebellion. Later claiming to be the "people’s candidate," he ran for and won the Presidency this year. Now he’s a faithful servant of the local bosses, Texaco and the Bush administration. He came to Washington and offered his support for the Iraq war.

There’s no shortcut to building a mass revolutionary communist movement to fight all the bosses and their imperialist allies. This is the key task facing all workers and their allies, from Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo to Caracas.

a name="The Truth Behind ‘Support Our Troops’"></">Th" Truth Behind ‘Support Our Troops’

The government and its mouthpieces in the mass media have drowned us all with the slogan "support our troops" to a point where people say it and believe it but haven’t thought about what it really means. Although workers who shout this slogan and wear yellow ribbons would probably deny it, it means: cheer them on as they kill and hope they return safely. Many would probably only admit to wanting a safe return, but that ignores the reality of war.

Soldiers are workers and the product they make is war. Since they’re soldiers in a capitalist army and take orders from the ruling class, they make capitalist war. The bombs they drop, the missiles they fire and the bullets they shoot kill millions of people so that some tiny super-rich group of capitalists gain or remain in power. "Support our troops" means support capitalist war.

Those soldiers do not create or start wars, but these wars couldn’t happen if they didn’t do their jobs. Many young workers enlisted because they were promised health benefits, schooling, and financial security, which seemed a better deal than most jobs available to the average worker. However, like many veterans have discovered — if they survive — they come home to empty promises. Here are some facts little publicized in the mass media:

• The Congressional Budget Committee voted to cut $25 billion in veterans’ benefits over the next 10 years.
• The Bush administration proposed cutting $172 million from impact aid programs which provide school funding for children of military personnel.
• The administration ordered the Dept. of Veterans Affairs to stop publicizing health benefits available to veterans.
• It is estimated that one of every three homeless men are veterans.
• The armed forces finally admitted that their Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons pose "long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans" and that "low doses have been linked to cancer."
• Thirty-six percent of Dessert Storm veterans have filed for service-related disabilities, DU being the primary reason.
• Gulf War vets have a 500% greater chance of getting Lou Gherig’s disease.
• The chances of having a baby with birth defects are 300% greater for women veterans and 200% greater for men who parent children.
• The U.S. military still uses Depleted Uranium

a name="The Rosenbergs — Loyal to International Working Class, Not to Bosses">">"he Rosenbergs — Loyal to International Working Class, Not to Bosses

On June 19th 50 years ago the U.S. government executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for "conspiracy to commit espionage." Their trial occurred in the midst of the anti-communist hysteria of McCarthyism and the Cold War.

Because the Rosenbergs were communists, the ruling class painted them as "agents of a foreign power," and communism as something alien to U.S. workers. The rulers claimed that the Soviets had to steal nuclear secrets because they were "too dumb" to achieve what "more advanced" U.S. scientists could achieve. But four years later, when the Soviets were the first to send a vehicle into space (the "Sputnik"), it was U.S. rulers who were struck dumb. Finally, to justify the death sentence, Judge Kaufman blamed the Rosenbergs for the Korean War and the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, helping U.S. rulers to intensify their rampant anti-communism.

The Rosenbergs were accused of "conspiracy" because it is easier to prove than actually committing espionage. Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, a low-level operative in Los Alamos, lied in exchange for the government not prosecuting his wife. He said that Ethel had typed the "secrets" for Julius. His lies sent Ethel to the electric chair. She refused to testify against her husband in exchange for a life sentence. In a recent book, Greenglass admitted he lied to help convict his sister.

Millions around the world demonstrated on behalf of the Rosenbergs. The couple had two young sons, 6 and 10, and most people felt even if their parents were "guilty," they shouldn’t be executed. Governments and even the Pope petitioned the Eisenhower administration for clemency. Many scientists pointed out that whatever secrets might have been given the Soviets would eventually have been figured out by them anyway. But the hysteria whipped up in the U.S. helped the ruling class win people here to back it in the Cold War.

It is very possible, even probable, that Julius Rosenberg did try to give information to the Soviets. He knew that U.S. rulers were threatened by the spread of communism because of the example set by the USSR, whose working class and Red Army had just smashed the Nazi war machine nearly single-handedly. U.S. rulers, along with Britain and France, had initially supported Hitler moving east to destroy the world’s first communist-led country. It was no stretch to figure out that the ruling class here, with a monopoly on the A-bomb, would not hesitate to use it on the Soviet Union. So they painted the Rosenbergs as disloyal Red traitors.

Unfortunately the Communist Party U.S.A. fell right into this trap. For several decades before World War II, the CP was part of the most dedicated internationalist organization in world history. They had fought for workers and the exploited everywhere. They were "disloyal" and "treasonous" to the bosses’ governments, racist police brutality, fascism, the bosses’ frame-up legal system, lynching, mass poverty and to the imperialist governments who killed tens of millions worldwide. Why should any worker or decent person be "loyal" to that?

But by the late 1930s the communist movement began to waver in its commitment to fighting the capitalists and allied itself with the "lesser evil" bosses. They abandoned working-class internationalism and the fight for communism.

By the time of the Rosenberg trial, the CPUSA focused more on the legal defense — framing the question as "were they spies or not?" — rather than on exposing the nature of capitalism and the need to overthrow the ruling class.

But "patriotism" and "treason" are, like all politics, class questions. Every government, every nation, is set up and run by exploiters, against the interests of the exploited. Working people have no nation. Nationalism and patriotism are used to get the working class to fight for the bosses’ class interests.

Communists are internationalists. We and our class owe no loyalty to any boss, including "our own" exploiters. We in PLP, and every class conscious person who opposes exploitation and supports workers’ struggles say, "Good for the Rosenbergs!" We proudly remember them and applaud their internationalist courage. "Loyalty to U.S. rulers" means loyalty to the exploiters and treason to the working class. Workers of the world, unite!

U.S. Rulers Loot Social Security

The U.S. ruling class is using the Social Security (SS) system to pay the military’s $400 billion budget and cut taxes for the rich while raising them for the working class. In this $3.2 TRILLION scam, the rulers are stealing trillions from the SS surplus to mask the real budget deficit, and scaring people into thinking that unless SS funds are privately invested, their pensions will go down the drain.

The bosses’ laws mandate that payments into the SS Trust Fund be used only to pay for current and future retirees’ pensions. A surplus has developed by more being paid into SS by current workers than is paid out to current retirees.

But since 1968, the government has been "folding" the surplus into the overall Federal Budget, called the Unified Budget. The Johnson administration did this to mask the true cost of the Vietnam War. By including the surplus in the general federal budget, it "dramatically reduced the percentage of the budget devoted to ‘defense’ in 1968 and throughout the military build-up of the 1980s." (New York Times, 1/21/90)

In 1998, Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) estimated that by 2012 there should be "a $3.2 trillion reserve" when the baby boomer generation starts retiring. (NYT, 11/9/98) But there won’t be any reserve. There will be a huge deficit because the government stole trillions from the surplus to help finance every war from Vietnam to Iraq.

The threat to SS could be eliminated if the biggest loophole of all was plugged. The law says workers must have 7.65% deducted from their paychecks in SS taxes. Employers must pay another 7.65% for each employee into the SS Trust Fund.

But this tax is paid only on the first $87,000 of wages annually. So a couple earning $50,000 a year pays $3,825 into the Fund, while a CEO making $10 million a year pays $6,655, a tax RATE of less than .0004 per cent! If the CEO had to pay 7.65% on his full $10 million salary, he would pay $765,000 a year and his corporate employer would have to pay another $765,000! With that loophole gone there would be no "deficit."

Tax Cuts And Budget Deficits

The current Bush tax cut for the wealthy and the billions of debt building from the Iraq war are producing an astronomical deficit. But this process began in the 1980s under Reagan and Bush and continued under Clinton. They also used the SS system to mask their swindles.

The fleecing of the SS Trust Fund surplus is not only paying for imperialist wars but masking the true dimensions of the Federal deficit. If a $200 billion SS surplus were not diverted into the overall Federal budget revenue, the Federal deficit would be that much higher and force the government to borrow even more money to "balance" the budget. So the working class is paying more in taxes while the rich pay less; facing the threat of reduced pensions to pay for endless wars; and giving our sons and daughters to kill and be killed in oil wars for profit and world domination. U.S. rulers are the biggest looters of all.

401(K)ick in the Head

The retirement dream of millions of U.S. workers is rapidly becoming a nightmare. While the rulers’ fleecing of Social Security endangers present and future retirees, the bursting of the 1990’s stock bubble has wiped out retirement for millions and impelled one of every eight workers over 65 to work or look for work. Nearly one-fourth of those over 45 plan to postpone retirement.

Much of this is due to the scam over 401(k)s. The old-fashioned company pension was a "defined benefit plan" — that is, the company was committed to pay a certain pension at a certain age and had to deposit funds to guarantee that amount. However, the 401(k) is a "defined contribution plan," meaning that whatever contribution was put in, either solely by the employer or by both the employer and employee, there was no defined benefit. The company had no defined commitment; future benefits depended on whatever happened in the stock market where the 401(k)s were invested.

Fine, when the market’s rising. But under capitalism, the boom always leads to a bust. This virtually destroyed those pension funds invested in 401(k)s. In the past two years, 77% of workers between 50 and 70 lost money in this thievery.

Originally the 401(k) was supposed to supplement the traditional pension. But corporations, seeing the chance to escape any committed benefit, shifted to the 401(k)s. If the market collapses, too bad for the workers. The company has no responsibility to pay out a specific benefit. From 1979 to 1998, corporations decreased the traditional plans by 60% while 401(k)s doubled.

Now "many seniors are returning to the workforce because they don’t have the financial resources" on which to retire. "And the baby boomers approaching retirement don’t look much better." (All quotes and information from N.Y. Daily News, 6/8)

With nearly 20 million workers unemployed or underemployed, capitalism now has ex-retired workers fighting younger jobless workers for a decreasing number of jobs.

The profit system leads straight to hell.

a name="1980’s Tax ‘Cut’ was Hike for Workers"></a>"980’s Tax ‘Cut’ was Hike for Workers

In the 1980s, the net income of millionaires greatly increased when the top tax rate for individuals was reduced from 70% to 28%. "The corporate tax rate also dropped substantially…[while] the share of Federal revenues from Social Security taxes rose 23 percent…[In] the Reagan-Bush years…the burden of taxation was shifted from the income tax to the Social Security tax. Counting their employers’ share, nearly three-quarters of all Americans now pay more in Social Security taxes than they do in income taxes…[Now] the expenses of the Government are financed more by a tax on the poor and the middle class and less by a tax on the wealthy." (NYT, 1/21/90)µ

Red Eye On The News

Below Are Excerpts From Mainstream Newspapers That Contain Important Information:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)\

Greed system dooms kids

Instead of the normal cycle of children growing up and burying their parents, in South L.A. the parents, with stunning frequency, are burying their children.

It is estimated that over the past 20 years some 10,000 young people have died in L.A’s violence-ridden neighborhoods.

"The young people have more of a chance of dying here in South Central than in a military combat zone" . . .

The mayhem is concentrated in certain sections of the city . . . the most troubled neighborhoods; [with] the chronic demons of poverty and joblessness. NYT 6/9/03

Liberals built for Iraq war

. . . many of the systems that were so successful in the recent Iraq war were put in the pipeline or first purchased under Democratic presidents.

A memo that former Clinton hands are quietly circulating points out that the F-117 stealth fighter and the B-2 bomber programs were developed in the era of former President Jimmy Carter. The Longbow Hellfire missile was tested and procured under Clinton. The Tomahawk Land Attack missile was a Carter-era program that the Clinton administration modernized and expanded.

"The Bush Administration made no significant changes in arms, force structure or personnel before taking to war in the Gulf the Army a Democratic president provided," the memo concludes. Washington Post 5/2

Racist medicine exposed

Residents from one of South Africa’s poorest townships have destroyed the myth that Africans cannot be trusted with Aids drugs — by staying alive.

Dozens of adults and orphans with the HIV virus have set a precedent by following a medical regime that some governments and drugs companies had said was not feasible in Africa.

Sceptics have long argued that poor Africans, many of whom lack watches and literacy, would break the strict regime of taking certain pills at certain times, risking the emergence of a drug-resistant strain of HIV.

"The response has been incredible. These adherence rates are better than you would get in the US or the UK," said an MSF spokeswoman. GW 6/4

No terror link to Iraq

. . . no conclusive evidence of joint terrorist operations by Iraq and Al Qaueda has been found, several intelligence officials acknowledged, nor have ties been discovered between Baghdad and the September 11, 2001, attacks on Washington and New york.

. . . an intelligence official said, "Things pointing in one direction were given a lot of weight and other things were discounted." NYT 6/9

No tax $$ for poorest

. . . there are 50 million households — 36 percent of all households in the nation — who will receive no benefit from the tax law. The figure includes people who do not earn enough to owe income tax. NYT 6/1

US used uranium in Iraq

Nine million tank rounds of depleted uranium (DU) litter the terrain of Iraq. When a DU shell is fired it ignites on impact. Uraninum plus traces of plutonium and americium, vaporize into tiny, ceramic particles of radioactive dust. Once inhaled, uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely . A single particle of DU lodged in a lymph node can devastate the entire immune system.

DU is classified by UN resolutions as a weapon of mass destruction. Yet a weapon of mass destruction was used in Iraq by those who were there on the pretext of seeking them out. GW 5/28

Now they call it terror

In its annual report to Congress on terrorism the State Department said that the 199 recorded terrorist incidents last year represented a 44 percent drop from the previous year. . . . Virtually all the incidents identified by the U.S. government as acts of global terrorism" in 2002 occurred in four places: in Colombia, in Chechnya with its separatist war; In Afghanistan, with the continuing low-scale war; and with the Palestinian intifada. Elsewhere, the Bali tourist bombing by Islamic extremists caused some 200 deaths.

Before September 11, 2001, virtually none of this would have been called terrorism. It would have been called civil insurrection or nationalist or separatist violence.

Since September 11, vast global significance has been attributed to such episodes. They have made the rationale for state mobilization and the restrictions of civil liberties in the United States (and at the American penal colony at Guantanamo Bay). Tribune 5/7

LETTERS

a name="‘Pushing 70’ and Still Anti-Fascist"></">‘P"shing 70’ and Still Anti-Fascist

Please send me the new issue of The Communist. In addition, I would like to renew my subscription. Please accept the remainder of the check as a small donation.

I look forward to each issue of CHALLENGE as a way of "re-connecting" with the cause. You keep tabs on the fascists well!

Incidentally, I am pushing 70 but did march in both D.C. and NYC in Jan-Feb-March. I watched good people in the 1950s fall as casualties of McCarthyism and can never forgive U.S. fascism for that. So keep up your sharp level of writing. Good work.

An Aging Comrade

AIDS Article Got It Wrong

I was very disappointed to see the misleading article, "Bosses Hide Poverty as Cause of Disease and AIDS" (CHALLENGE, 6/11). While the title is true, the article perpetuates the favorite myths of a fringe group of HIV deniers. For instance, questioning the definition of AIDS (implying that most African cases are incorrectly diagnosed) comes straight from two California quacks, Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick, recently popularized by the rock group Foo Fighters. These two are dangerous because they have recently gained the ear of South Africa’s Mbeki, whose own AIDS policy of neglect is part of the betrayal of the South African working class described so well in an article in the same issue.

There is overwhelming evidence that AIDS is caused by HIV, in Africa as elsewhere. Block transmission of the virus from mother to child and you prevent the disease; without anti-virals one-fourth of the babies born to infected mothers will die. It is insulting to suggest that African doctors can’t tell the difference between AIDS and endemic diseases. One-third of the world is infected with TB, but the majority of cases are latent and do not make people sick. HIV infection reactivates latent TB and the TB bacterium hastens the progress of HIV infection; this is why TB is often the hallmark of AIDS.

I lost a dear friend ten years ago; she was one of the first victims of the African pandemic, infected by a contaminated blood transfusion before the days of HIV testing. All my African friends have lost family, friends, and co-workers to this holocaust. These were not poor people. They were teachers and nurses, comparatively well-fed and previously healthy. Conversely, an African friend whose immune system was already severely damaged by HIV was treated with the new anti-virals and remains healthy today, 15 years after infection.

The article suggests that "life-style factors" determine HIV survival rates. However, many in the U.S. who lived in the fast lane (multiple sex partners, injected drugs) are surviving long-term on the new drug cocktails. Anti-virals aren’t a cure, but they stave off death unless the virus evolves resistance.

The ravages of imperialism explain why HIV/AIDS is primarily killing the poor of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In that sense, AIDS is a disease of poverty, as are TB, malaria, and cholera, also all caused by infectious agents. But when Mbeki says, "Poverty causes AIDS" he means something deeply cynical. If he admitted the virus as the cause, he would have to do something about it and that something doesn’t fit his IMF-tailored bottom line. The ANC (African National Congress) would have to fight for cheap anti-virals and defy big drug companies’ (and the U.S. government’s) bar against low-cost generics. They would have to push an unpopular prevention campaign. They would have to mobilize to be something they are not — advocates for the working class. Even Mandela has denounced Mbeki’s indefensible line on AIDS, amidst growing resistance in South Africa. (New Yorker, 5/19)

Our rulers’ solution for infectious disease in the world’s South is to invoke "appropriate technologies" for treatment. Paul Farmer quotes an activist’s definition of this concept as "shit for the poor." In "Infections and Inequalities," Farmer (who treats AIDS and TB in Haiti) argues that we must reject lower standards of care for the working class of poor countries. That could be a prescription for revolutionary internationalism.

Mid-West Comrade

Look to Workers Not to Democrats

Eleanor and I are becoming friends through our activity in a local peace organization. She’s taken a lot of leadership in our group. Recently we rode together to a "progressive" conference. Eleanor was concerned that some of our members have been pushing voter registration as our main focus. "I’ve been in so many grassroots organizations over the years," she said. "And the same thing always happens. People go off to work for John Anderson, or Gene McCarthy or McGovern. They never return, and then we have to start all over. I don’t want that to happen to us." I certainly agreed with that.

"But then what should we be doing?" she asked. I said focus on the domestic costs of the war economy — connect with labor and community groups to push for actions against the cuts, like strikes. As we approached the conference, she said she’d always favored that sort of work.

One of the conference’s best speakers was a working-class woman who explored her personal development from an "ordinary housewife" to a community leader. On the way home, I told Eleanor I thought this speaker answered her question. We should be looking to working-class people like her, not to the Democrats, as our hope for the future,.

"But you can’t just not vote," she replied. "At least the Democrats are better on the environment, the judiciary, and all."

That sparked a good conversation about "lesser evils" and how shallow the concept of "democracy" is when it’s reduced to capitalist elections — and about a book I’d been reading describing how the Chinese communists had organized really popular decision-making in villages they liberated after World War II. She agreed with that more than I thought she would.

I told her some believe the rulers would allow reforms in order to maintain their system. But, I said, the USA-Patriot Act showed they would sooner aim to squash a mass movement through force.

"I’d rather see a revolution," she said.

A Comrade

Revolution A Universal Language

The war in Iraq has helped us fight to make revolution a real alternative for some workers.

I work in the garment industry where exploitation of the working class has no borders. I’m on a new job with mostly Asian workers whose language I don’t understand.

It’s easy to make friends, but we’ve had to overcome the obstacles of language and customs. At first I only smiled at my co-workers and they started to call me "the friend," but this was too general and lacked true friendship. I learned some words in their language and exchanged food at lunchtime to get everyone to call me by my name. For me, it was a big victory for building unity among the workers.

When the war in Iraq started, there was a lot of discussion at work between the workers and the boss. I didn’t understand their positions and asked one of my friends to explain them. She replied that the workers said the war was for oil, a war of rich against poor, and that the boss had told them if they didn’t like it, they should leave this country.

I explained to my friend that the boss won’t understand this point because she’s defending her interests and has to protect them while seeming to build friendships with the workers (she’s also Asian). This gave the green light to discussions about imperialism and class struggle. (It’s happening with the help of a translation machine I take to work.)

My friend and co-worker invited me to her house and, using words in three languages, we were able to have a good conversation. She showed me some pictures. In the background of one was a (red?) flag and the portrait of a revolutionary leader. This inspired more confidence in me to deepen our discussion as daughters of proletarian revolution.

Garment Daughter of the Revolution

Bosses Cry Wolf(owitz)

Paul Wolfowitz, the Undersecretary of State, tells all in the Vanity Fair magazine. The Washington authorities had no solid evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction held by dictator Saddam Hussein. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, doctors a document about those same weapons. Donald Rumsfeld puts his foot in his mouth and says the weapons cannot be found. The next day he reverses his statement. The bosses’ rags are low-keyed about this.

To some of us this may not be news or a surprise. We remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident. During the sixties, the government manufactured news that a Vietnamese boat had attacked a U.S. Navy ship. Congress gave the military war powers. Later it was proved no such incident occurred. Many Vietnamese were killed.

The bosses’ rags lie for the sake of their class interests. In the past we have seen many such lies.

The point is, we have a newspaper that looks after the interests of the working class — CHALLENGE-DESAFIO. We should make an effort to increase the circulation of our newspaper among our friends. Sometimes our own anti-communism prevents us from increasing CHALLENGE distribution. Our motivation should be that we carry out our class interests. We must be as aggressive as the bosses are when we try to increase our working-class paper. Thank you.

A Red Healthcare Worker

a name="U.S. Hiring India’s Army to Police Iraq">">".S. Hiring India’s Army to Police Iraq

U.S. War Secretary Rumsfeld made the unusual move of calling on India’s Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani at his hotel suite in Washington on June 8 soon after Advani had arrived by train from New York. The Sunday sortie appeared to involve the issue of sending Indian soldiers to Iraq.

It seems the U.S. military has underestimated the number of occupying troops it will need so it’s trying to recruit some of the most fascistic elements of the Indian army as mercenaries. U.S. bosses want the units of the Indian army that are actively involved in urban warfare and experienced in dealing with suppressing civilians. This resembles the use of the South Korean army during the Vietnam war. The Indian bosses want a bigger price for this support in the form of a dominant role in Central Asian gas and oil, and firm control over Pakistan.

Advani asked for more time because at issue is command and control and how long the commitment was for and to what purpose. Some of these issues are already being discussed by the Indian military and the US Central Command, according to newspaper reports.

The two men also discussed strategic ties between the two countries including the transfer and supply of military and hi-tech equipment.

It appears the U.S. is not exactly prepared for its task as imperialist conqueror of the Iraqi people.

A West Coast comrade

How I Became A Communist

Before I became a communist I was already anti-U.S. Government. I had seen how they tried to forcefully impose their will on others, and the consequences for those not conforming. Not living in the U.S and not brainwashed by its media made it easier to see such things.

Being from the Caribbean I saw how they tricked countries like Jamaica and Guyana into devaluing their currency via the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, placing these countries forever in debt to the U.S. I saw how they threatened sanctions against St. Lucia and other Caribbean nations just because they preferred to trade with the European Union.

I didn’t identify this as imperialism, just a superpower trying to bully smaller countries and take over the world. I was quite content living my capitalistic lifestyle with my capitalistic dreams while deep down loathing the U.S. government. I thought once a president who cared about the workers was elected, things would change. But I didn’t realize this would never happen under capitalism. It was only when I moved to the U.S. that I realized how one-sided this supposed democracy really is. The people vote for a president but basically he’s still picked by the ruling class. They say this country was built on basic freedoms like free speech, yet when your views differ from the ruling class’s you’re labeled "unpatriotic" and are blacklisted. I felt the whole system needed to be changed but didn’t really know to what.

Then a friend, a PLP member, took me to a meeting at her mentor’s house and I learned about communism, capitalism, nationalism and imperialism. Before then the only "isms" I knew were racism and sexism.

As I learned more about communism I found I had some communist ideas for years (such as fighting imperialism) but didn’t know it. I understood that capitalism needed poverty, pay cuts, crime and other ills to exist. This disturbed me. Though I thought communism was a good idea, I was still skeptical. I wasn’t sure I was really up to the challenge or ready to give up my capitalistic dreams, like owning my own business and gaining power by any means necessary.

Basically I was being a hypocrite. I hated the U.S government but if I got the chance I would do the same. I realized that however much we workers complained about the system, if we didn’t unite and fight, the system would never change and that the only way we could smash imperialism was through communist revolution.

One great deciding factor was the May Day celebration in 2002. I never saw so many people of different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds joining together for a common cause. May Day had been nothing more than another day home from school or work in my homeland, but seeing all these people celebrating really opened my eyes. I decided it was time to change, to become a communist. I’ve been in PLP for one year now and am still learning new things every day.

A new comrade

a name="China’s Red ‘Barefoot Docs’ Would Have Stopped SARS"></a>"hina’s Red ‘Barefoot Docs’ Would Have Stopped SARS

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune about SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) by a Lee Feigon says 90% of the workers in Mao’s China were covered by medical insurance. Today only 11% are covered.

Then the government had organized a system of "barefoot doctors." They were healthcare workers with some basic skills working in China’s most remote rural areas. They not only treated individual patients and administered vaccinations but were also concerned with sanitary conditions in the community and the workplace.

While maybe not discovering new, expensive drugs, they were a network of dedicated healthcare workers, able to spot, report and advise on measures to contain epidemics.

Things are very different today for workers in China. The new capitalists who run the "Communist" Party of China dismantled this healthcare system. The present one is riddled with corruption, bribery and profit-making. China’s workers are exploited. One need only go shopping here to see the products made by our fellow wage slaves. It’s so bad that these bosses are moving their maquilas (sweatshops) from Mexico to China, where labor is even cheaper.

The SARS epidemic shows what workers can expect from capitalism. The barefoot doctors would have contained, if not prevented, a SARS outbreak.

A red medical worker

1. RACIST NYPD REIGN OF TERROR KILLS TWO
   BLACK WORKERS
2. Liberal Democratic Candidates Want to `Out-Hitler' Bush Gang
3. Workers' Only Interest in Bosses' Dispute: Organize to Fight Them All
4. Vietnam War Criminal Kerry: Leader of Liberal Fascists
5. Rulers Using SARS to Militarize Public Health
6. Back Workers' Fight vs. GE Warmaker, Strike-breaker
   1. How Anti-Communism Screwed GE Workers
7. Immigrant Workers Caught in Sears Tower `Terror' Sweep
8. Homeland Security = National Guard Strike-Breaking
9. May Day Deaths Symbolize Betrayal
   of South Africa's Workers
10. Baghdad May Day 1959:
    One Million Marched Under Red Flags
11. Arundhati Roy's `Boycott' Solution Will Never End Capitalist Misery
12. GI's Should Refuse To Be
    An Occupying Army
13. May Day 2003: `The Party's in Good Hands'
14. PL'er Challenges Roy's Smokescreen
15. Building the Party:
    Saying `Yes' To Active Mass Organizing
16. LEARNING FROM STRUGGLE
17. U.S. Rulers `Nuke' Iraqis
    And Own Soldiers
18. Massive Strikes Sweep France
19. Basra Oil Workers Lambast Invaders and Ba'ath Stooges
20. Child Labor Is Good For Business
21. Bosses Hide Poverty As Cause Of Disease and AIDS
22. LETTERS
    1. Anti-Communism Spawned Bush's Neo-Cons
    2. Individual Freed In Collective Fight For Revolution
    3. Action Among Masses Spurs PLP Growth

---

RACIST NYPD REIGN OF TERROR KILLS TWO
BLACK WORKERS

NEW YORK CITY, May 23 -- At the break of day on May 16th, a squad of New York's "slimiest" kicked in a Harlem apartment door and attacked with stun gun and grenade. But rather than the drug dealer the cops claimed they were chasing, they had exploded the grenade in front of a life-long city worker and church-goer, Ms. Alberta Spruill. After being handcuffed, she collapsed in shock and died on the way to the hospital.

This was such an obvious "mistake" that Commissioner Kelly and Mayor "Cut-back-everything-except-my-billions" Bloomberg immediately cried crocodile tears of apology, hoping to calm the fury that would rise over yet another racist cop-killing.

The cops acted on an informer's information, and -- holding the community in contempt -- made no attempt to corroborate it with anyone in her building.

But really this was NO "MISTAKE"! The National Lawyers Guild estimates that one or two unarmed people -- usually black or Latino -- are killed each week somewhere in the U.S. Several days after Bloomberg's "apology," the cops killed Ousmane Zongo, an unarmed immigrant from Burkina Faso, Africa, a craftsman working in an African art bazaar that flourishes inside a Chelsea warehouse. The official lie was that he tried to pull a cop's gun during a raid on a video piracy outfit. Later it was revealed the victim had nothing to do with the people the cops were raiding.

Mr. Zongo's friends and colleagues described him as a "gentle, friendly" man "who avoided conflict, spoke no English and did little except repair African sculptures in his third-floor stall and send money home to his wife and two children...in Western Africa." (New York Times, (5/24) Alema Zonon, an art vendor from Mr. Zongo's home country, said, "He never, never [fought] with nobody....The police, I can't believe it. They shoot him for nothing." (NYT) A friend said that before he was slain he was preparing to return home to his family.

These murders are part of the racist terror and intensification of fascist repression designed to intimidate working people from fighting back against the sharpening oppression of an empire struggling to maintain world rule. Immigrants have always been special targets of this terror, but with post-9/11 Homeland "Security" the door kick-in at daybreak has become a regular occurrence for our Arab, Islamic and South Asian sisters and brothers. Ms. Spruill's murder shows that the police are being given the green light to attack ANY ONE OF US, citizen or immigrant, in the most barbaric way.

A fight back is developing. Two Harlem-based vigils and marches are planned this week. This killing -- and the Patriot Act fascism it represents -- must be sharply raised in every workplace, school and organization. Resolutions like several already passed in various organizations must be endorsed and circulated. And most of all action, not just agitation, must be urged aggressively to turn the tide of this obviously growing fascism. PL'ers active in these struggles must show co-workers that racist terror/cutbacks and capitalism are birds of a feather, and that the role of cops is to serve as goons of the rulers' fascist terror.

Liberal Democratic Candidates Want to `Out-Hitler' Bush Gang

U.S. rulers have made a clumsy attempt to disguise their bloody drive for world domination as a crusade against "global terrorism." The 9/11 attacks gave them an excuse to wreak havoc in Afghanistan and to invade the Persian Gulf. Their recent conquest of Iraq represents one step in a much broader imperialist strategy. It includes more oil wars and eventually confrontations with other imperialist rivals temporarily too weak to challenge the U.S. head-on.

The big bosses understand that this strategy requires fascism -- a full-blown police state -- at home. They need to discipline and mobilize the working class to fight for U.S. imperialism and accept the inevitable casualties and sacrifices. The rulers also need discipline within their own ranks. A tactical squabble has been raging among them about the best methods for achieving these goals, paralleling the foreign policy spats between "neo-conservatives" and liberals.

Workers' Only Interest in Bosses' Dispute: Organize to Fight Them All

Workers have no stake in allying with any of the rulers as they argue over how to conquer the world and implement their police state. Our only interest lies in organizing to smash them all by building the Progressive Labor Party and planting the seeds for communist revolution.

However, it's important to recognize the true motives behind the big lies the rulers are spreading, to identify the enemy who speaks in "friendly" tones. As usual, the main danger to the working class is the liberal wing of the U.S. Establishment.

Shortly after 9/11, the liberals began lambasting Bush for blowing a golden opportunity to set up a police state, focusing on his economic policies. Bush has tried to develop the police state on the cheap. His "have-your-cake-and-eat-it" approach tries to combine fascism and hefty tax cuts for his corporate buddies. The liberals squawk that this approach won't work, saying centralizing the government and mobilizing the population on a level unprecedented in U.S. history will require a vast, costly effort. Their favorite parallel is World War II. They want to channel billions into the U.S. drive for world domination, not into Bush's tax cuts. With the 2004 presidential election season nearing, they've begun to play their hand.

New Mexico's Governor, Democrat Bill Richardson, with deep ties to the Rockefeller wing of the Eastern Establishment, recently called for Democrats to develop a "strong economic message" and a "strong national security message," adding, "if we need to use force, we do it." (New York Times, 5/26)

Then Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who demanded a department of "Homeland Security" when Bush still opposed it, says "the Bush administration is not spending enough on homeland defenses." (CNN, 5/22). Florida Senator Bob Graham proposes that the FBI "strengthen and improve its domestic capability as fully and as expeditiously as possible" and complains about the FBI's "history of repeated shortcomings...in the face of grave and immediate threats to our homeland" (Prepared Testimony for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, May 22).

Vietnam War Criminal Kerry: Leader of Liberal Fascists

Right now, the leader of the pack is Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who honed his skills as a mass murderer during the Vietnam War. Kerry has wrapped a fully-packaged plan for a police state in red, white, and blue and labeled it "a new era of national service." To underscore its paramilitary aspect, Kerry announced it at an American Legion Hall in New Hampshire. The plan includes: college tuition credit for national service, a high school community service graduation requirement to be administered by state governments, the recruitment of 100,000 "older Americans in service" and a "summer of service" for 13-17 year olds, a "rebirth of the Peace Corps" (Kennedy's pet project for getting idealistic youth to work for U.S. imperialism), the recruitment of "more Americans to the military" and the creation of a "new community defense service." (Washington Post, 5/19).

Kerry and the liberals understand, as Hitler did, that a police state is much easier to implement if those whom it oppresses play an enthusiastic role in carrying out their own oppression, a hallmark of the liberal Clinton presidency. Clinton destroyed welfare and replaced it with a form of slave labor. Yet until his final days in office, he enjoyed high poll ratings. Kerry & Co. want to build on this record. He's framing his campaign in the rhetoric of community spirit and self-sacrifice. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne notices that Kerry has given the "service idea a new twist. Drawing from fellow Vietnam veteran John McCain...Americans, Kerry say[s], `think elected officials no longer ask them to serve a cause larger than themselves...' [Kerry casts] patriotism and community-mindedness as the opposites of `get-mine and get-out rhetoric and a `creed of greed.' These he associate[s] with Bush's overall approach to domestic policy" (Washington Post, 5/20)

Sure, Bush represents greed. Greed is a by-product of the profit system. But Kerry and the liberals serve the same class interests as Bush. Kerry merely has a more sophisticated, class-conscious approach than the Bush gang. "Community-mindedness" and the rejection of selfishness are noble goals. However, what's their true content? For Kerry & Co., this still means conquering the world and inducing us to applaud while we pay the awful price.

The working class's criteria for "community-mindedness" is the complete opposite of the imperialist agenda for war and fascism. Our class consciousness views all bosses as our enemies. The liberals will keep trying to sucker us into marching under the banners of their police state. The Progressive Labor Party will continue to organize workers, students and soldiers into marching under the red flag and fighting for a future of communist revolution.

Rulers Using SARS to Militarize Public Health

If the SARS virus hadn't broken out, the bosses would have invented something like it. It's given them a golden opportunity to push their plans for domestic fascism.

Police terror is a major component of fascism, but not the only one. To maintain social control, the carrot can serve as an equally useful tool as the stick. Health care is an important carrot.

When the SARS virus began making headlines, Dr. Joshua Lederberg called it "a variation of the common cold..." (L.A. Times, 5/24). Lederberg is President-emeritus of Rockefeller University. He quickly revised his political estimate and now thunders that this virus is the "single greatest threat to man's dominance on the planet." (Quoted in Dr. Elin Gursky, "Now to Confront a Greater Enemy," ANSER, Institute for Homeland Security)

CHALLENGE readers will remember the "anthrax scare" that followed the 9/11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. The bosses never found the culprit, but they made a lot of hay about "bioterrorism." As early as November 2001, Democratic Senators Jay Rockefeller and Bill Frist held a public forum linking epidemics to bioterrorism. Now a virtual industry has emerged combining the two. Its leaders include scientific and political pillars of the Eastern Establishment. On November 1, 2001, Margaret Hamburg warned the Rockefeller-Frist gabfest: "We need to recognize that public health is public safety, and an important pillar in our national security framework....Public health is a critical defense need" (Transcript, "Bioterrorism and Biodefense: Are We Ready?"). Hamburg is a former New York City Health Commissioner, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an Overseer of Harvard University.

Dr. Elin Gursky, a Senior Fellow at the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, links SARS and the imperialists' recent war in Iraq. She praises the U.S. military's "flexibility," laments that the health care establishment lags far behind it, and calls for a dramatic increase in the number of public health employees, concluding: "The nation's ability to meet the threat of terrorists as well as newly-emerging diseases is now clearly a matter of 21st century national security" (op. cit.).

The rulers' response to SARS exposes their intention to militarize public health and use it as a tactic for sweet-talking or coercing us into relying on them to "protect" us under any and all circumstances. This is the main aspect of the SARS episode. The disease itself will probably soon be replaced by another real or concocted public health emergency. But imperialist war and fascism will not go away. They must be destroyed. We need to remain vigilant about the rulers' schemes for conning us into depending upon them for our "well-being." Only a revolutionary communist analysis of events can provide the framework for doing this.

Back Workers' Fight vs. GE Warmaker, Strike-breaker

Twenty-four thousand General Electric workers may strike the world's third largest corporation -- and most profitable arms producer -- in June. It would be the first nationwide walkout by GE workers in 34 years. One-third of GE's workforce has 30 years service.

GE is demanding workers pay $900 annual health insurance co-payments. In January, targeted two-day strikes protested the company's unilaterally imposed $200 hike.

GE's net profit in the first quarter of 2003 was $3.2 BILLION -- an annual rate of nearly $12.8 billion -- a slight "slippage" from its 2001 record of $13.6 billion. Now this multi-billion dollar giant wants to soak its workers for health insurance after they've given a lifetime of work to produce those huge profits.

Thirteen unions are involved and the bosses hope to play them off against each other. Already the Machinists have broken away from the unified bargaining team. But that "team" doesn't seem to be adopting a class struggle position. The International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE), which recently merged with the CWA (communications workers), is the largest of the thirteen and wants GE to remain "neutral" in any unionization drive. GE's CEO is having none of it.

The world crisis of capitalism is moving GE to squeeze its workers even more. When profits "drop" from $13 billion to $12 billion, they start to worry. This crisis is tied to U.S. imperialism's drive to permanent war to deal with its economic rivals. GE reaps huge profits selling the weapons that are killing workers around the world. GE bosses call on their workers to "patriotically" produce these weapons and then demands that they take cuts in their hard-earned wages and benefits to maintain GE's profits and the bosses' war machine.

Should GE workers strike, all workers and students should support it -- joining the picket lines, helping to stop scabs, raising money in their organizations, passing resolutions, picketing GE sales units, inviting GE workers to union meetings and campuses to speak about and marshal support for the strikers. This is an opportunity to organize all those who opposed the U.S. war in Iraq to help GE workers fight one of the world's leading war makers.

A militant strike against this war maker and strike breaker can inspire workers worldwide and send shivers down the spines of GE and its class. "Workers of the world, unite!"

How Anti-Communism Screwed GE Workers

The communist-led United Electrical Workers (UE) unionized GE and the other large electronics industry corporations in the mid-1930s. When the Second World War ended, the CIO's UE had 650,000 members, including all of GE's production workers. Then came the ferocious anti-communism of the Cold War. Most of the CIO's leadership marched behind the U.S. ruling class's anti-Soviet offensive. The Reuther CIO leadership set up rival unions to its left-led sections. The IUE was born as a dual union to UE.

A key certification struggle occurred at GE's giant 10,000-worker Lynn, Mass., plant. The night before the vote, liberal Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey (later vice-president under Lyndon Johnson) wired Lynn's GE workers that if they voted for UE, the company would lose all its government contracts and thousands of GE workers would be out of a job. Despite that blatant anti-communism, well over 4,000 workers voted for UE, which lost the election to IUE by just 400 ballots.

When the smoke cleared, the anticommunist IUE had captured 325,000 members, the UE was left with 50,000 and nearly 300,000 electrical workers were lost to unionization altogether from the former 650,000-strong UE.

Anti-communism pays -- for the bosses.

Immigrant Workers Caught in Sears Tower `Terror' Sweep

CHICAGO, IL May 23 -- "This is an injustice. How can they take away his life like this?" declared the wife of a Sears Tower janitor, a Mexican immigrant who, after working for only a month, was arrested as part of the "War on Terrorism." Federal police said the sweeps were necessary to protect a potential high-profile target for terrorists. They wouldn't say how many workers were arrested or name their countries of origin.

After the 9/11 attacks, city and federal officials added concrete barriers and X-ray machines to protect the 110-story building. A Sears Tower spokesman said the immigrants worked for tenants, not for the building itself, and that building managers "would...support any steps [taken by] the federal government..."

Last December 10, federal police targeted immigrant airport workers at O'Hare International and Midway Airports. At least 46 were arrested, and 20 were charged with federal criminal offenses. About 40 are still awaiting decisions on their deportation cases. Federal police also made arrests at airports in New York, Miami, Washington and elsewhere as part of Operation Tarmac. One of these workers gave a very moving talk at the PLP Workers' May Day Dinner.

Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, "We are...trying to ensure that everyone who has access to secure areas is who they say they are." The arrested janitor had no access to any secure area. She said that even a law-abiding undoncumented immigrant was vulnerable to blackmail from terrorists. "If they're not terrorists hemselves...being...undocumented...leaves them open to coercion," she said.

Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said, "Do you feel safer because busboys and janitors are being deported?...They are not terrorists, and they are not dangerous. These are the same people President Bush was talking about legalizing just two years ago."

The arrests were carried out during an "orange alert" just before the Memorial Day weekend. While the TV floodlights glared on thousands of "citizen-victims" reporting to hospitals as part of the Homeland Security drill carried out last week, in the darkness federal and local police were planning terror attacks against all immigrant workers. This one-two punch was an attack on the working class at large. The only thing more terrifying than the raids themselves is the deafening silence of the mass movement in response to them. We cannot allow this silence to dominate our unions, churches, classrooms and community organizations. Our response to these fascist attacks must be reflected in a rising CHALLENGE distribution and a more active, fighting revolutionary communist movement.

Homeland Security = National Guard Strike-Breaking

CENTRAL NEW JERSEY, May 27 -- The AmerGen Energy Co. of Chicago has the New Jersey National Guard inside its Oyster Creek nuclear power plant here on an "anti-terrorist watch" protecting scabs being imported to break the strike of 215 electrical workers. The "war on terror" has come home with a vengeance for striking members of Local 1289 of the IBEW (Int'l Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). They're fighting the company's demand to lay off at least 15% of the workforce, plus "flexibility" to lay off even more and also break work-rules to force workers to perform several jobs other than their own.

The contract expired last October, was extended until January and then the company stalled bargaining until unilaterally imposing a new contract on April 14. The NLRB rejected a union petition saying this company move was "unfair," so the workers finally walked out on May 22.

AmerGen says it wants to make the plant "efficient and competitive." Yet since buying the plant three years ago it has already chopped the workforce from 850 to 450 and now wants even more cuts. The bosses hope to break the union by bringing in scabs from its nine other plants.

The striking workers operate Oyster Creek's nuclear reactor, monitor and repair the plant's various gauges and dials, and insure that workers are not exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. They say their jobs are too specialized to risk having to perform jobs other than ones they're trained for.

Right now the plant is shut down because of a cable failure and the company wants the scabs to fix it and get the plant operating again. While the rulers say they're so "concerned" about "terrorists," they're ready to allow this company to use untrained scabs to repair and run a nuclear reactor, and use troops to protect those scabs! This endangers not only the workers but thousands of the state's residents.

Obviously the "war on terror" is a war on the working class, in Iraq and in New Jersey.`

May Day Deaths Symbolize Betrayal
of South Africa's Workers

May Day was a day of anguish for workers in South Africa. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) reported a "tragic accident near Bethlehem, Free State, killing 60 workers, mainly members of the SA Municipal Workers' Union. The bus taking them from Kimberley to a May Day rally in Qwaqwa plunged into a dam. What should have been a celebration of the workers' day turned into a tragedy."

A lack of maintenance on South Africa's roads, creating dangerous conditions, caused this "accident."

After years of rule by the ANC (African National Congress), recent figures show a worsening poverty among black workers since the days of apartheid. Years of militant struggles by workers and youth, which inspired anti-racists worldwide, won little or no gains for apartheid's victims. Early in May BBC News Online reported that, "Incomes in black households fell by 19% between 1995 and 2000....The research carried out by the Univ. of Western Cape surveyed black townships around Cape Town, where it found 76% of households living below the poverty line of $42 per month."

The international anti-racist movement, mostly spearheaded by communists, led heroic struggles. But these struggles were undercut by the erroneous outlook of the old communist movement. Present events in South Africa offer great lessons.

Walter Sisulu, who played a leading role in launching the armed struggle against the apartheid regime died around May Day, just before his 91st birthday. Sisulu was born in a rural region, son of a domestic who became an urban worker. In 1949, he was elected Secretary-General of the ANC and played a central role in shaping it into a major revolutionary, anti-racist organization. During that period, Sisulu fought most of the ANC leadership that opposed multi-racial unity with other non-black groups fighting apartheid. In the early 1950's, he forged an alliance with the India Congresses, the Congress of Democrats (formed by anti-apartheid whites) and the African Coloured People's Organization. Patiently he won the ANC nationalists. who opposed this multi-racial unity, to build a multi-racial movement.

He also fought anti-communism within the liberation movement and built unity between the trade union and communist movements. In 1955 he joined the banned underground Communist Party, later becoming part of its central committee. He was arrested in the early 1960s, and, along with Nelson Mandela, made a defiant speech against the fascist regime, knowing they would pay for this. Both were sentenced to life and spent 25 years in Robben Island prison. Refusing to be broken by the fascists, he organized and politicized younger fellow inmates, turning the jail into what became known as a "people's organization."

He was also a key figure in holding the ANC together during bitter in-fighting within the anti-apartheid struggle. Like many revolutionaries, he was also a loving husband, father and grandfather.

But despite his commitment and his dream of a revolutionary, anti-racist, multi-racial South Africa, the movement he helped found and lead established a capitalist regime. Now the same workers who fought apartheid are organizing mass struggles and strikes against the evils of the profit system -- unemployment, layoffs and poverty -- under the ANC government. Despite superficial changes, allowing a few non-whites into the ruling class and among its henchmen, the same racist bosses -- Oppenheimer's Anglo-American corporation and other local British/U.S. companies -- still run South Africa.

This most enormous tragedy was the fight by the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the entire anti-apartheid movement for capitalism with a "human face." There's no such animal. National liberation has historically maintained the profit system, just with greater participation of local bosses.

Capitalism is based on exploiting workers, no matter who runs the government. The SACP became a reformist, pro-capitalist organization now part of the ANC government. The millions of workers and youth oppressed by apartheid (like the very militant townships rebels known as "young comrades") wanted a system representing their class interests, not a "change of faces." They need communism, where workers rule and whose production serves the working class, not the Oppenheimers and their ilk. That is the lesson PLP have learned from this and many other struggles worldwide. Join us!

Baghdad May Day 1959:
One Million Marched Under Red Flags

On May Day, 1959, 44 years ago, one million workers, students, intellectuals and peasants, Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Christians and Jews, marched in Baghdad under the red flags of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). Six years before, the ICP had led a massive general strike against the government and the imperialist oil companies behind it that totally shut down the country and eventually ousted the hated monarchy. The ICP could have taken power but didn't. The reasons were briefly outlined in the CHALLENGE article (5/14) on Iraqi workers needing communist revolution. However, valuable lessons can be drawn from the ICP's achievements and grave mistakes.

Founded in 1935, three years after Britain declared Iraq "independent" (although still its semi-colony), the ICP followed the line of the old international communist movement. During World War II it supported the war against the Nazis and stopped denouncing the British imperialists (who were fighting the fascists). After the war, the anger of the masses at British imperialism and the Iraqi monarchy grew. The ICP attacked both. Then the January 1948 mass uprising erupted, the biggest against the monarchy, begun by students but quickly spreading to workers and peasants. On Jan. 27, the police killed several hundred protestors, but the struggle continued. The Prime Minister fled to London. But when Moscow recognized the state of Israel that year, the ICP (like its sister parties in the Mid-East) was stunned. Many quit. The Iraqi rulers' repression intensified. They publicly executed the head of the ICP.

However, it recovered and grew. From 1953-55, influenced by the Chinese CP, it raised the immediate need of the proletarians to seize power. But when Nasser took over in Egypt under the slogan of "Pan-Arabic socialism," the ICP again sought unity with a "progressive national bourgeoisie."

Finally, in 1958, "free" military officers, following Nasser's lead, overthrew the monarchy, calling for state capitalism under a strong nationalist capitalist class. This movement capitalized on the anti-imperialist and anti-monarchy feelings of the masses. The new military regime was forced to legalize all unions and political parties, but its "socialism" was a sham. U.S., British, French and Dutch oil companies gobbled up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. The Kurds, whose strongest party was the Communist Party, demanded autonomy and, even more important, a share of the oil wealth. The "free officers" government of General Qasim refused.

The ICP, although not part of the "free officers" movement, supported it. Despite years of repression, the ICP grew stronger -- as May Day 1959 demonstrated -- impelling CIA head Allen Dulles to label Iraq "the most dangerous place in the world" (shades of Bush!). The new military regime attacked the ICP. The Party, instead of fighting for power (potentially possible), stopped criticizing the Qasimgovernment. Despite ICP support, the regime continued to jail and kill communists and banned its newspaper. Such were the fruits of supporting the "progressive nationalist" bosses.

In 1963, a Baath Party coup overthrew the Qasim government. The Kennedy CIA provided its new friends in the Baath Party with a hit list of communists. Thousands were jailed and killed. Through several ensuing coups, the ICP grew weaker, suffering many splits, including a Maoist group whose guerrilla warfare against the Baathites was crushed.

When Saddam Hussein finally came to power in the mid-1970s, he began with a left cover, even allowing ICP and Kurdish participation in the government, But by 1978, Saddam felt strong enough to clamp down on the ICP.

Now the Party has reappeared publicly, the first to publish a newspaper -- the People's Path -- after the fall of Saddam. It has opened offices in many cities. But its line is even more right-wing than previously. During the Saddam regime it was part of the Iraqi National Front, led by U.S. agent Chalabi. It broke with the Front when the U.S. cut its funds as a Front member. The ICP has renounced any form of revolution (in 1963 it had attacked Leninism). It now wants to build a "European style" social-democracy in Iraq.

But Iraqi workers have a long history of rebellion. A new revolutionary communist movement is a matter of life and death for the working class of Iraq and its allies. Their fight is two-fold, against both the U.S. occupiers and their lackeys), and also the religious fanatics who want to build an Iranian-style Islamic regime. They need the support of the international working class.

Arundhati Roy's `Boycott' Solution Will Never End Capitalist Misery

Tens of millions of people worldwide have reacted to U.S. rulers' invasion of Iraq and its more open moves for world domination by moving to the left, by becoming anti-imperialist, by questioning the status quo -- capitalism. It is a time when millions can be won from merely opposing imperialism and questioning the profit system that spawns it to seeing the need for communist revolution to forcibly wipe out capitalism.

Recently Arundhati Roy, an activist from India, made a speech to a packed house at the Riverside Church in New York City. Interestingly enough, she was beginning an international tour, sponsored by the Center for Economic and Social Rights, at this epicenter of liberalism, also known as the Rockefellers' church.

While indicting many aspects of U.S. imperialist policy to a cheering, mostly middle class throng, when she reached out for a solution to the mass misery, fascism, racism and war induced by capitalism, she even quoted the Soviet revolutionary Lenin in asking: "What is to be done?" Unfortunately, she did not report his answer: since no ruling class nor oppressive system has ever given up its rule without a violent struggle, the working class must be organized for a violent revolution to defend its class interests. That can only be accomplished under the leadership of its own party, a communist party, organized for a communist revolution to wipe out capitalism, not reform it.

After puncturing holes in many of the rationalizations spouted by Bush to justify the U.S. ruling class's mass murder in Iraq for the past 12 years; after accusing the Bush administration and the 9/11 terrorists of "working as a team;" and after exposing how the Bush gang plans to introduce U.S.-style capitalism into Iraq for the greater glory of the oil billionaires, since, "There is no conventional military force that can challenge the American war machine," what does she propose? A boycott of U.S. and British goods, a "People's sanctions" on every corporation with contracts in Iraq to "force them out of business." Even if such a boycott could succeed, what does that leave us with? A "kinder, gentler" capitalism? A capitalism with a "human face"? This is a call for social democracy, a "solution" that has often led to fascism, or at best an attempt to reform a profit system than cannot be reformed but hides its exploitative nature.

To indict U.S. imperialism for many of its crimes without advancing a strategy to smash it is to allow it to continue wreaking its havoc across the planet. Historically boycotts have never ended an oppressive system. Such actions might sharpen contradictions, but for what? To make for a "kinder" capitalism? Ms. Roy says the Republicans are destroying democracy and that "Americans must take it back." But "democracy" here has always meant capitalist rule, whether by Democratic or Republican servants. Who is the force to challenge the Bushites? Never once is the indictment of U.S. imperialism extended to the Democrats, to the liberals. The clear message from all this would be to vote "bad guy" Bush out and do what? Vote a "good guy" Democrat into the White House in 2004? This is no solution, but rather a continuation of capitalist misery with (possibly) a "gentler face."

Ms. Roy has no class analysis. What she said is completely acceptable to the liberal section of the ruling class, which is why she's allowed to speak at the Riverside Church. Would that have happened if she were to attack capitalism as inevitably exploitative, much less call for communist revolution?

Even assuming Ms. Roy is well-meaning, such well-meaning people can have wrong ideas that are dangerous to the working class. Yes, workers DO want to know "what is to be done." It is the job of communists to bring Lenin's answer to the working class, especially at the point of production, in the military and in the working-class communities. It is here where PLP's message can become a key force for the solution to all the oppression capitalism hits us with.

While the movement of millions to an anti-U.S. imperialist stance has been a very positive development, to then divert it into one of rule by liberal capitalists is just as bad as rule by the present cabal and even more dangerous. No, the strategy must be to move those tens of millions opposing U.S. rulers to see that capitalism must be destroyed by communist revolution.

GI's Should Refuse To Be
An Occupying Army

The British Army has rejected a Pentagon request to move several thousand of its troops from southern Iraq to patrol Baghdad and relieve the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division (ID). The British said they feared morale problems if they didn't send soldiers home now. This is the same problem U.S. generals are having with the Third ID. The "quick" war is turning into an extended quagmire.

As an occupying army, U.S. and British troops are coming into continuing close contact with large numbers of Iraqi civilians. U.S. soldiers are firing into anti-U.S. demonstrations, killing unarmed civilians at close range on a daily basis.

Not only is this is a crime against Iraqi workers, but the brutality and uncertainty of being an occupier also puts a tremendous strain on soldiers. House-to-house searches and raids, killing of civilians, including children, and spawning the hatred of those the brass said you were "liberating" takes a huge toll. Some Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza eventually formed a "refusnik" movement, refusing to serve in the dehumanization of being an occupying force that uses such brutal tactics as employing Palestinians as human shields.(The photo above is of a recent demonstration in New York City supporting the "refusnik" soldiers.)

Many U.S. soldiers who were led to believe that after a quick "liberation" they would be going home, may be realizing that this was no liberation and they wouldn't be going home for a while. The strains are starting to show. The disagreement between the U.S. and British military over who will patrol Baghdad is a sign of that stress.

Historically soldiers have rebelled against being occupiers. When World War II ended, tens of thousands of U.S. GI's who helped defeat the Japanese in the Philippines were ready to return home right away. The U.S. bosses were reluctant to send them home because they feared the mass communist-led struggle in Asia at the time, inspired by the Soviet defeat of the Nazis and the growing communist movement in China. So tens of thousands of soldiers openly marched in opposition to the brass and demanded to go home. While the U.S. Army never completely left the Philippines, most soldiers were quickly sent back to the U.S. The "We Want To Go Home" movement was a powerful example of soldiers taking history into their own hands.

May Day 2003: `The Party's in Good Hands'

NEW YORK CITY, May 3 -- "The Party is in good hands," said a speaker tonight, as he looked around the room while recounting the history of the Progressive Labor Party. Indeed, May Day here was a resounding success. From the inspiring and informative pre-dinner presentation; to the rousing speeches given primarily by young people; to the delicious, home-made international cuisine; to the rich and varied cultural program, May Day showed that although we have a long road ahead, we're truly on the road to communist revolution.

Because central leadership was placed in youthful hands, with guidance from veteran comrades, our dinner was notable for its variety and spirit. The keynote speeches, two of which were given by young people, were well-planned and enthusiastically delivered. The audience responded eagerly to the call of our featured speaker, as he outlined the inevitability of misery and mass murder under capitalism and asked: "Is this the kind of world we want?" "NO!" shouted the crowd. Another speaker recounted the proud history of May Day, pointing out how even May Day harvest festivals in Europe and the U.S. revealed elements of class struggle between workers and bosses. Later a new young comrade gave an impassioned speech on why he joined the Party and how it helps him fight his "selfish, capitalist ways."

Our cultural program revealed a vast richness of talent. From hip hop to traditional and contemporary folk/protest music, from revolutionary gospel to rock, our Party has found many forms to express the class hatred felt toward the bosses. Singers and poets, especially among the youth, used their talents to expose capitalism and call for communist revolution as the only solution to capitalist wars and terror.

Our well-attended dinner included guests from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, among other places. It had an anti-racist, international character, with workers and youth from many countries.

Our consistent, long-term work in large mass organizations reaped the fruits of our patient labor, both quantitatively (attendance) and qualitatively (participation, recruitment and consolidation). This success is a beacon for us all.

The activities were well-planned by our May Day committee which met months before. Youth were in charge of writing and helping to critique the speeches, as well as planning the event. We emerged inspired by the wealth of knowledge and talent in the Party, determined to bring them to many more workers.

May Day is a time when we as a Party can survey our forces and plan our next steps on the road to revolution. We want to recruit from among the key participants and guests, consolidate present members, and wage fierce class struggle against imperialist war, rising fascism, racist attacks on immigrants and the monstrous budget cuts and unemployment devastating the working class.

Our Party definitely is in good hands. And we must use them to build, body by body, struggle by struggle, a mighty communist party that can crush the ruling class forever and create a world in the tradition of May Day: one working class, worldwide, united and free of exploitation.

PL'er Challenges Roy's Smokescreen

LOS ANGELES, May 27 -- When Arundhati Roy spoke here today, a PLP member was able to ask, "Since you say that `government leaders must be held accountable,' isn't it true that the global corporatism that you oppose is really imperialism, which is inherent in the capitalist system, and isn't it true that the leaders who you want us to hold accountable are only accountable to the capitalists and therefore opposed to the interests of the workers of the world and isn't it true that the only way for workers to solve this problem is to organize a revolution to take power and destroy capitalism?"

There was some applause, after which Ms. Roy "replied" that she hadn't said the government leaders are accountable, but that we would have to make them accountable.

CHALLENGE was sold before, during and after the speech. A CHALLENGE seller was asked by an Indian man if "you were the person who asked the question about revolution." "Yes," came the reply but the seller "wished it had been clearer."

"You were very clear," said the man. "Here's $2.00 for your paper."

A PLP leaflet distributed at the event noted that on May 20, 60 million workers in India organized the largest strike since "independence" from British imperialism, and asked, "Isn't such a show of workers' strength at the point of production a better school for revolutionary change than the internet-organized boycotts you suggest?"

Building the Party:
Saying `Yes' To Active Mass Organizing

I had been in my university's Chicano student organization for only three weeks when a leader of the group asked me if I "would like to drive half-way across the country to attend our national conference." Two years ago, I probably would have replied "no" and called someone to leaflet and sell CHALLENGE outside the conference. Little did I realize that by answering "yes" I would not only create a great opportunity to organize among these students, but would learn valuable lessons as well.

The trip became fun and a chance for me to get to really know others in the group. The conference was less nationalistic then I expected and offered many opportunities to discuss revolutionary Marxist ideas openly, probably stemming from the fascism and terror U.S. rulers are openly pushing today. Comrades living in the immediate area, a member organizing in the regional chapter to the north and myself were able to use this exciting mood to both agitate from the outside and organize inside to move the workshops militantly leftward.

Our active struggle at the conference and in our individual chapters sparked a lot of communist discussion on the long trip home, ranging from the war in Iraq -- triggered by a CHALLENGE flyer -- to communist centralism. A young leader of the organization raised the common misconception that "[working] people don't really have a voice under communism." I pointed out the lack of decision-making power the working class has now, under capitalism (using the war as an example). We discussed how the decision to build a neighborhood power plant might be made under communism. The people in the community, workers trained in power-plant engineering and environmentalists would all be involved. Money, potential profits and labor exploitation would not exist. The working class would come first.

Our talk ended with this same young man saying, "If we're going to do this [communist revolution], I'd like to be a leader of the south central region." This same Chicano student is know receiving the paper and enthusiastically attended our May Day dinner. Another Latina woman from the trip is also becoming more involved.

LEARNING FROM STRUGGLE

Careful work does not mean non-work. Nor does it mean reluctance and fear. After 9/11, the political atmosphere and how we function changed. Capitalism's instability has made war and fascism the order of the day.

For us to effectively struggle now, we must actively do so in mass organizations. Without saying "yes" to the trip, this group's leadership could easily have misled my chapter with nationalist and liberal, pacifist ideas. We must react quickly and be willing to aid our comrades "on the inside."

My most important lesson? Often we are too reluctant to tell workers and students about the Party for fear of being "exposed." Certainly, we must take the class enemy into account, but what's the use of careful organization if it stops us from spreading our class view publicly and doesn't let workers and students know a communist party exists that will eventually break the chains pulling us down? By saying "yes" to actively struggling in mass organizations, we are saying "yes" to a communist future.

U.S. Rulers `Nuke' Iraqis
And Own Soldiers

The so-called precision war by the U.S. against Iraq has left a legacy of death and suffering by radiation poisoning that will last far into the future. Over 200,000 U.S. veterans from the 1991 Gulf war are disabled and over 10,000 have died due to illness caused by that war, many from radiation poisoning because of depleted uranium (DU) weapons. DU is used in many types of ammunition and armor on vehicles. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. and British soldiers and millions of Iraqis have been exposed to these poisons. When DU shells explode, they not only have more immediate killing power but they also create radioactive dust that stays in the environment indefinitely. So in addition to the destruction caused by the initial bombing, the poisons go on killing for years. DU poisoning, in fact, is now killing children born to Iraqis and U.S. soldiers since the poison has passed through semen onto the next generation.

In Gulf War I approximately 300 tons of DU was dropped on Iraq. This time it was between 1,000 and 2,000 tons. Even worse, the majority of the latter were dropped on heavily-populated areas. The U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute (EPI) admitted that, "If DU enters the body, it has potential to generate significant medical consequences."

DU's lethal nature has been extensively documented yet hardly reported on by the bosses' press. It utterly belies stories of "precision bombing," low U.S. casualties and limited "collateral" damage. Actually, Gulf Wars I and II were mass murder for oil, with extremely high casualties among Iraqi civilians and soldiers as well as U.S. troops. Thus, the great defenders of "civilization" in Washington and London are the main users of weapons of mass destruction.

Current U.S. soldiers should listen to the stories of Gulf war vets suffering from radiation poisoning. Those politicians and TV personalities who wrap themselves in the flag and put up yellow ribbons to support the troops are covering up the military's deception. While U.S. soldiers were invading Iraq and Afghanistan, the very leaders who have been publicly patting them on the back were poisoning them.

Those sailors on the deck of the aircraft carrier where Bush landed to make his gung-ho speech (and then shortly left) have been sleeping and working next to DU bombs and missiles 24/7 for the last ten months.

The military has fought tenaciously to deny benefits to soldiers disabled due by DU poisoning. The military denies it's dangerous, yet their own training manuals advise anyone who comes within 80 feet of DU-contaminated equipment to wear protective gear. The Army knew that if the troops were to realize what they had been exposed to, "the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive."(EPI)

U.S. rulers will stop at nothing to control the flow of Mid-East oil. They are already developing more "small-scale" nuclear weapons to use on battlefields filled with U.S. soldiers in their upcoming wars. To them the lives of U.S. GI's, like the lives of Iraqi and Afghan workers, mean nothing.

Massive Strikes Sweep France

PARIS, May 28 -- A wave of strikes swept through France as over 600,000 workers and students marched through this city on May 25 protesting government proposals that would force them to stay on their jobs up to five more years before collecting their pensions. Demonstrators also condemned government plans to make it more difficult for poorer students to obtain a college education. Yesterday an air controllers' walkout grounded 80% of 4,000 scheduled flights. Teachers extended their strike, the seventh such walkout. Parisian sanitation workers struck for a 2nd day. A call went out from transportation and civil service workers for an open-ended strike beginning June 3. All this is part of a fight-back to prevent European bosses from breaking a host of social welfare benefits workers have gained in past struggles.

Basra Oil Workers Lambast Invaders and Ba'ath Stooges

"We want elections, we don't want another Saddam," read the placards of 300 oil workers demonstrating on May 9 at the Basra refinery, second largest in Iraq. They were protesting the British Army's appointment of a Ba'ath Party official to manage the oil works. "We [want] to choose our managers now that Saddam is gone," said Mehdi Saleh Maatouq.

But UK commander Binns is threatening the workers, hiring armed guards because, he says, "People here only understand the law of the gun." This is "liberation," U.S./UK-style.

Iraq's workers can play a crucial role in rebuilding a revolutionary communist movement. The oil workers especially -- producing the world's most important resource -- are decisive to that revolutionary task. Oil for profits and to maintain world domination are why U.S. bosses invaded in the first place and what's behind their every move. With Exxon, Chevron, BP, Halliburton, Bechtel & Co. moving in, exploitation of Iraq's oil workers will mount. All the more reason to raise the cry, "Oil workers of the world, unite!"

That's why PLP organizes to build an international revolutionary communist movement. This is an urgent task since all kinds of reactionaries, from the hardcore followers of Saddam Hussein to Islamic fundamentalists are trying to co-opt the growing anger of workers and youth against the U.S.-UK occupation forces.u

Child Labor Is Good For Business

The U.S. ruling class would like workers to believe child labor is something that only happens abroad, mostly in poor, "developing" nations. But child labor is alive and well inside the U.S. and is good for U.S. business.

The super-exploitation of children in agriculture and industry was part of the reason that capitalism flourished in the U.S. Child labor was a common feature of slavery and also occurred among those working for wages. In the 1600's, bosses believed that "children should be industriously employed" and passed laws requiring children to work. With the rise of the industrial revolution at the turn of the 19th century, factory towns became dependent on the super-exploitation of women and children. Children between 7 and 12 made up one-third of the workforce in U.S. factories.

The U.S. government was very cautious about restricting child labor because it would drastically lower bosses' profits. Not until 1938, with passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, were laws enacted concerning minimum wages, overtime pay, safety conditions and child labor (forced by a communist-led movement of millions). But children working on farms are still not subject to laws governing the maximum number of hours they can work outside of school.

A 1997 survey by the Child Labor Coalition found 6,229 employers in 35 states in violation of child labor laws and 7,577 minors were illegally employed in 29 states. Because penalties for these violations are so low, occasional fines hardly dent the profits gained from exploiting these children. In fact, a 1997 study by the Associated Press it found that farmers and factory owners who illegally hire under-age children typically escape civil or criminal punishment altogether.

Rather than re-enforce existing child labor laws, Congress has been relaxing the federal laws protecting child laborers. In 1996 it reversed laws prohibiting minors from loading, operating and repairing paper balers after the National Grocers' Association and Food Market Institute lobbied against the law in order to avoid fines and penalties. Similar instances have occurred in the automotive and sawmill industries. The government has served the interests of the bosses and not the safety of working-class children.

Agri-business is the worst offender. As many as 800,000 children under 18 work as migrant and seasonal farm workers in California alone. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 1992 to 1998 43% of occupational fatalities of children 17 and younger occurred in agriculture. Teenage agricultural workers risk never completing high school; only 47% were in a grade corresponding to their age. Many of these child laborers receive no health insurance and four in five migrant working teens have no family supervision or support.

The fact is, for U.S. bosses children are desirable as employees because they are easier to control and are less likely to demand higher wages, better working conditions and organize unions. With child labor, industries can pay substandard wages and withhold benefits they normally would have to provide to adult workers. Furthermore, competition among domestic and international bosses has made child labor in "developing" nations a desirable alternative to better-paid adult labor at home. U.S. bosses are doing everything possible to open up cheap child-labor markets here and abroad to safeguard their profits. Under capitalism, child labor is good for business.

Bosses Hide Poverty As Cause Of Disease and AIDS

Our May Day celebration health display table contained a controversial paper disputing contemporary medical theories about HIV/AIDS. This flyer -- the opinion of one person -- stated that the HIV virus does not resolutely lead to AIDS ending in death. She questioned the medical model which assumes that many diseases of poverty, unsafe water supplies, etc., are being categorized as AIDS caused by HIV when they're actually caused by the poverty induced by the capitalist profit system. Moreover, modern drugs may actually weaken the immune system.

The current medical model is based on two tests, the ELISA and Western Blot. A positive response on either test alone merely shows the presence of a protein present in numerous pathogens. HIV is only one. Others sometimes resulting in an HIV+ result include viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, malaria, auto-immune disease (i.e., lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis), cancer, herpes simplex virus, the flu shot and even pregnancy!

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) definition of AIDS includes people who've ever had a CD4 (immune response "helper cell") lymphocyte count below 200 cells per micro-liter tested positively for HIV or who have infections that can occur with HIV (i.e., pulmonary TB, invasive cervical cancer) and those that rarely occur in the absence of severe immunodeficiency.

Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2003 (see reference below) states, "dramatic increases in the efficacy of antiretroviral treatments have improved the prognosis of persons with HIV/AIDS. One consequence is that fewer persons with HIV ever develop an infection or malignancy or have a low enough CD4 count to classify them as having AIDS, which means that the CDC definition has become a less useful measure of the impact of HIV/AIDS in the US."(p. 1272) But this medical book omits the importance of rising hepatitis C-related deaths among HIV/AIDS diagnosed persons, directly corresponding to street intravenous (IV) drug use. They point to life styles as a very relevant component in the HIV survival rates.

Lifestyle factors involved include "recreational" drug use of all kinds -- including alcohol -- fast living, junk food and many processed foods, tobacco, stress, lack of sleep and sexually transmitted diseases. For example, drug users die at an average age of 31, regardless of HIV status. Clean needles might prevent hepatitis transmission but don't protect against the toxicity of the heroin in the needle.

Most medical texts also do not distinguish between persons labeled as having AIDS and the recognizable diseases of poverty, especially those rampant in Africa where the clinical diagnosis of AIDS includes four symptoms: persistent dry cough, fever, persistent diarrhea and weight loss. These symptoms are common to diseases endemic to many of the poorest nations. Many are also on the list of conditions causing false HIV+ tests, including malaria, TB and parasites. There are 300 million cases of malaria every year. Millions more people are stressed, malnourished, don't have clean water to drink and can't afford mosquito netting.

Companies manufacturing HIV drugs reap mind-boggling profits. AZT, the first approved anti-viral drug, is highly toxic to bone marrow and most (normal) cell replication. But the cost is a "mere" $364 per month compared to the current "cocktail" which costs $1913/month! (ibid, p. 1292) The regimen is complicated; the side effects range from neuropathy to hepatitis and acute gastro-intestinal distress. No wonder people seek alternative theories and treatments.

Primary prevention, such as condom distribution, counseling, safe needles and perinatal HIV prophylaxis are a low priority, quite simply because increasing profits cannot be made from safe sex and widespread education.

Bibliography:
Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2003, edited by Lawrence Tierney, Stephen McPhee and Maxine Papadakis "You Don't Have To Die; Lwon Chaltow"

LETTERS

Anti-Communism Spawned Bush's Neo-Cons

CHALLENGE has always pointed that anti-communism is a deadly enemy of all workers, showing how workers and others who fall for it sooner or later end up paying for it. Recent events are full of this fact.

For instance, the gang surrounding Rumsfeld -- the so-called Neo-Conservatives (Wolfowitz, Perle, etc.) -- are direct descendents of the post-World War II anti-communism of the liberal and Trotskyite movements. Most of these Neo-Cons, and one of their gurus (William Kristol) were Trotskyites then. They soon joined the Cold War anti-communists, led mainly by liberals working with the CIA. Later they were influenced by the philosophy of Leo Strauss, who advanced very elitist, fascist ideas. Strauss (who died in 1973) taught at the Univ. of Chicago and influenced many, including Wolfowitz. Strauss said it was the natural right of the wise and strong to lead societies for the benefit of their "democratic" aims, using subterfuges because telling the truth won't get the job done (see Seymour Hersh article in The New Yorker magazine, 5/12).

The Neo-Cons' lies and deception led to the invasion of Iraq and caused much death and destruction but, after leading the U.S. foreign policy since 9/11, they are now in disarray, particularly since the Eastern Establishment (the main section of the U.S. ruling class) doesn't seem to need them as much.

Many other forms of anti-communism have led to the massacre of millions. In Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, Islamic fundamentalism, pushed anti-communism during the Cold War, serving the aims of U.S. rulers. Osama bin Laden and the Saudi ruling class financed the Islamic fundamentalist movement that fought for the CIA against the Soviet Union's allies in Afghanistan. Today, these fundamentalists have turned against their former U.S. friends.

In the future I'll write more of the many examples of anti-communism leading to fascism and more wars.

An anti anti-communist

Individual Freed In Collective Fight For Revolution

Capitalism affects every aspect of our society as well as our human relationships. What is sometimes not completely clear is the extent to which capitalism also affects our personal lives. It's not simply a matter of the exploitation of our labor for a wage that cannot give our families a decent life, now or in the future. For this system is also targeting us constantly with propaganda to determine our criteria for self-esteem.

Under capitalism, the worth of human beings is related to the "importance" of their job. We often evaluate ourselves according to the same principle. The natural consequence is an individualist rush to be "the best slave in the system," being more and more trapped in the flatteries and briberies of money, social prestige and so on. A person who, for whatever reason, doesn't "qualify" is considered a loser -- most tragically, often by themselves as well -- whose life is worth nothing.

The answer to bringing back our inner dignity as human beings and workers will never be found in any role assigned by capitalist society. Besides our jobs that we are forced to do to support ourselves, there is another job which really makes life worth living: the daily struggle for revolution and a communist world.

In this job we are not isolated and trapped in our limited individualist goals, but we walk together with our class brothers and sisters. We are not even trapped by time since the struggle for communism is uniting our generation with past and future ones. Not only a day-by-day struggle for life in this capitalist prison, but a long-term outlook to get out of this prison forever.

What are our choices for this truly productive work? Everyone must find their own answers according to their potential, interests and skills that capitalism presents us with in order to maximize their exploitation of us, combined with the opportunitites of the moment.

A Comrade

Action Among Masses Spurs PLP Growth

The war in Iraq and the celebration of May Day have affected our relatively new Party club. Apart from our general activities, we had a small dinner with eight adults and four children. As always, we had a great dinner with really good food, as the occasion merited. Some members wore shirts with Party slogans. The celebration was informal but always political. We talked about the war, what can happen now in the Middle East, about fascism and listened to music. One of us reviewed the significance of May Day.

This was the culmination of another year of activity in which we've increased participation in the mass movement. The war sharpened our struggle among co-workers and friends who were drawn closer to the Party. Some were very active with us in the anti-war movement, generating more enthusiasm in two comrades who'd been a little down.

After last year's May Day, the sharp struggles to participate in some mass organizations didn't produce the desired results right away, but gradually the situation changed. Two comrades joined an organization of mainly immigrant workers, another became active in their union, and still another sporadically in a church. As the war neared, club struggles sharpened over more active participation in these organizations. With the war upon us, this involvement grew.

In a meeting before May Day, we discussed the value of these activities. Some felt the effort didn't produce enough results, but we all agreed we had made small but important advances in almost all areas. Some co-workers from our jobs came with us to marches. Some have now participated in study groups; others read CHALLENGE. A friend who had become inactive is now involved again and brought two people to the May Day dinner.

Although our dinner wasn't mass, it was significant. We invited more of our friends to come. Those who didn't called to apologize, asking about the Party's May Day march. They now feel closer to us.

All this hasn't been automatic. More struggle is needed to recruit them to the Party, but being involved with them in the mass movement made everyone more enthusiastic.

The last of our guests stayed to make future plans and promised to keep fighting, with greater commitment. It seemed no one wanted the day to end, but tomorrow is another day, with more workers vowing to fight for the future of the international working class.

A visionary comrade

 

May Day 2003: Marching The Road To Revolution

Democrats, Republican Agree: More Workers’ Blood For Oil

CAPITALISM: It Is in the SARS

a href="#N.Y. Times: All The Lies That’s Fit To Print">"Y Times: All The Lies That’s Fit To Print

a href="#Bush ‘Victory’ in Iraq = Al Qaeda Reloaded">Bu"h ‘Victory’ in Iraq = Al Qaeda Reloaded

Black Immigrant Workers Welcome Marchers

May Day in LA: Building a Revolutionary Communist Party in this Day and Age of Endless Wars and Police State

a href="#The ‘Challenge’ of A Lifetime">Th" ‘Challenge’ of A Lifetime

El Salvador: Salute Communist Ideas

a href="#Colombia Death-Squad Gov’t Can’t Stop May Day">Co"ombia Death-Squad Gov’t Can’t Stop May Day

a href="#Panel Debates Iraq War; Students Make It ‘No Contest’">Pa"el Debates Iraq War; Students Make It ‘No Contest’

Boston Students Lead Fight vs. Racist Budget Cuts

a href="#Army Vet’s Workfare ‘Reward’: Joblessness">Army"Vet’s Workfare ‘Reward’: Joblessness

Red Flag Over the Reichstag: The Battle that Finished the Nazi Regime

LETTERS

Comrade Writes From Pakistan

Organizing May Day Inside A Garment Factory

Garment Struggle Reveals Power of Working Class

LA May Day Inspires Transit Worker

a href="#Fight Against, Don’t Trust Politicians">"ight Against, Don’t Trust Politicians

Only CHALLENGE Tells It Like It Is

a href="#Likes PLP’s Communist Message">"ikes PLP’s Communist Message

Red Eye On The News

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May Day 2003: Marching The Road To Revolution

PLP’s May Day activities, although modest, should not be underestimated politically. Last year we marched after the destruction of the World Trade Center and in the midst of the rulers’ launching a Homeland Security fascist police state. This year we marched before the smoke had cleared from the racist, imperialist massacre carried out in Iraq. While U.S. imperialism flaunted its military might before the whole world, while Bush carried out his "Top Gun" fantasies on a U.S. aircraft carrier returning from the slaughter, beneath the headlines and the massive "embedded" media propaganda (embedded with the imperialist butchers), the communist movement was on the move in the belly of the beast.

These are complex times. We can only begin to grasp the nature of the period through the collective efforts of our revolutionary communist party and its many friends, applying the science of Dialectical Materialism as best we can. The racist rulers are giants with feet of clay. The war in Iraq has intensified all the contradictions between the imperialists, among the bosses and between the rulers and the working class. This is a period of increased turmoil and a quickening tempo. History is moving faster.

The millions around the world who marched against the war, who represent millions more, reflect that the masses on some level have moved to the left, opposing U.S. imperialism. Tens of thousands in the anti-war movement responded enthusiastically to CHALLENGE and our Party’s call for communist revolution. The response of the immigrant workers in Brooklyn to our May Day march was especially inspiring. On our jobs and in our schools and communities, thousands of CHALLENGE readers supported and/or participated in various May Day activities. This, as the ruling classes and mass culture moved to the right, embracing nationalism, racism and fascism.

But likewise, the quickening pace and the millions in the streets create huge opportunities, even though we have a long way to go. Communists’ political work requires a sense of urgency while we also take a very patient, long-term view. The demise of the old international communist movement is still a big burden on the working class. On the one hand, we stand on the shoulders of these past giants. But we are also learning from their mistakes as well as their strengths. It was these internal weaknesses — taking on too much of the baggage of capitalism — that led to that movement’s downfall, not the attacks from the outside by world imperialism.

Our modest efforts during the recent oil war in Iraq and in building May Day are important steps in re-building the confidence of the working class in communist politics. A PLP entrenched in the working class and among its allies will become the alternative workers are seeking to this rotten capitalist system.

The internal strength of the Party and the mass movement is primary. Mao Tse-tung said if you step on an egg it breaks, but if you step on rock it doesn’t. It’s what’s inside the egg and the rock that is primary, not the foot stepping on them. Slowly but surely, we are building a rock.

Democrats, Republican Agree:

More Workers’ Blood For Oil

The rulers’ war in Iraq has generated a lot of media chatter about a "new American empire." In the last six months, news stories have carried that phrase nearly 1,000 times. The liberal press in particular has taken the Bush White House to task for its "imperial" behavior.

Sure, Bush and the "neo-conservatives" who advise him are imperialists. But so are the liberal politicians who now squawk about a foreign policy based on international alliances. The U.S. is an imperialist country, regardless of the party in the White House. Imperialism — the need to control foreign markets, labor power and resources and eventually to dominate the world — comes from the profit system’s basic nature. This isn’t a strategic debate between good guys and bad guys in the ruling class. It’s a minor tactical tiff among our mortal class enemies, who all agree on the strategy of ruling the world at gunpoint.

Only a communist analysis, based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, enables workers to understand the class character of imperialism and to debunk the illusion that imperialist wars can be avoided if only we put a "lesser evil" leader in power. The working class has no interest in choosing among capitalist politicians. Our deepest interest lies in organizing to smash all of them and seizing power for our class, no matter how long it takes.

Let’s check history. Bush’s conquest of Iraq didn’t hatch overnight. It follows the logic of U.S. bosses’ plans over many decades. An essential element of that strategy has been ironclad control of Persian Gulf oil. World domination cannot allow a rival to grab an important share of this treasure. The bosses have known this since the end of World War II.

At first, under the liberal Democrats Roosevelt and Truman, they relied on Great Britain to protect U.S. oil interests. The decline of its own empire forced Britain to pull out of the Middle East in 1971. By then, U.S. strategists had come up with a pincer approach, supporting the fascist Israeli military in the west and the fascist Shah of Iran in the east (after the CIA had engineered a 1953 coup to install him). This strategy was refined under the liberal Republican Eisenhower and the liberal Democrats Kennedy and Johnson. But the best-laid imperialist plans often go awry, and an uprising led by Islamic fascists hostile to U.S. interests overthrew the Shah in 1979.

After this major defeat, on Jan. 23, 1980, another liberal Democrat, President Jimmy Carter, made an unmistakable threat:

"An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

This warning came to be known as the "Carter Doctrine," and it has served as the cornerstone of U.S. Persian Gulf policy ever since. It justified Bush, Sr.’s 1991 "Desert Storm." It underlay Clinton’s murderous sanctions against Iraq throughout his presidency, his regular bombing raids against Iraq and even his aerial genocide in 1999 against workers in the former Yugoslavia.

The Bush White House has merely extended the Carter Doctrine. Seven months before the latest war, Vice-President Cheney sounded just like Carter in telling the Veterans of Foreign Wars: "…seated atop ten percent of the world’s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could…be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East [and] take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies." But Cheney was broadening the Carter Doctrine beyond Baghdad. The assault on Saddam also targeted U.S. rivals France and Russia, whose bosses have their own imperialist plans for Iraqi oil.

U.S. strategy has therefore followed the same general path since WW II. The biggest tactical change has come with the collapse of the old communist movement and the Soviet Union. Previous checks on U.S. power have dwindled, and U.S. rulers, both Republican and Democrat, have taken advantage of this maneuverability to assert their supremacy. The basic goal — world domination — remains the same and control over Persian Gulf oil is still crucial.

Presently, U.S. imperialism enjoys vast relative military superiority over all its rivals. Since the Clinton years, "American forces [have been] deployed in a grand crescent surrounding the greater Middle East, from the Balkans southeast to Djibouti, east through the Persian Gulf region into Pakistan and Afghanistan, and north into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan." (New York Times, 5/10)

The bosses can get away with murder, and they intend to keep doing it. After all, from their point of view, the entire world is at stake, along with trillions in profits. "Our primary goal," writes "neo-conservative" theorist Max Boot, "should be to preserve and extend [this] ‘unipolar moment.’" Boot makes clear that this task will demand more war abroad and fascism at home: "Carrying out all our current global missions will require reversing the military downsizing of the 1990s…Add billions more for homeland security…That’s a small price to pay to police the globe."

Boot isn’t just a rabid "neo-con." He happens to be a senior fellow at the Liberal Establishment’s Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and his article was featured on the CFR’s web site. From the working class’s standpoint, there’s no major rift among the bosses. "The real debate…is not whether to have an empire, but what kind." (New York Times, 5/10) Like the rulers of Ancient Rome and Britain, U.S. bosses alternate between acting alone and creating "alliances" based on a carrot-and-stick approach.

Workers have to remain level-headed and firm. We can’t fall for the liberals’ claims that their leadership can build a "kinder, gentler" imperialism. There’s nothing kind and gentle about the Carter Doctrine. Just look at Iraq today. And we can’t succumb to cynicism or hopelessness just because U.S. imperialism now seems so powerful.

The Chinese communist leader, Mao Zedong, compared the imperialists to "paper tigers." He said we must take full account of the bosses tactically, recognizing their enormous capacity to spread havoc and murder. By the same token, he expressed contempt for their fundamental strategic weakness, because the profit system will always create problems it can’t solve.

Our approach should be: U.S. imperialism has a lot left in its arsenal. We have a long road of small and large struggles ahead. Our tactical arsenal is still very small. However, our strategic arsenal — the theory and practice of revolutionary communism — will eventually prove invincible. The bosses’ drive to maintain world domination and the wars that come from it will produce many opportunities for our Party and the working class movement to become stronger. We have a crucial job to do, today and always, for our class and for the generations to come. Sooner or later,the long night of capitalism will turn into the day of communism.

Profit System Makes All Diseases Worse

CAPITALISM: It Is in the SARS

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) appears to be a new and serious disease. There have been big outbreaks in several East Asian countries and in Toronto, Canada. It produces flu-like symptoms and can progress to pneumonia (infection in the lungs). About 6 % of those with the disease have died. Although most SARS patients recover fully, it’s still too early to know if those who survive will have permanent disabilities.

SARS appears to be caused by a virus known as coronavirus. ("Corona" means "crown"; the virus has a crown-like appearance when viewed under a microscope.) The coronavirus has been associated with some mild illness in humans and more serious illness in animals. It’s likely that the coronavirus, probably in China’s Guangdong province, underwent a mutation (a change in its molecular structure), making it more dangerous to humans. Scientists are still learning about how the virus is spread. It may survive for quite a while in human feces and on countertops.

Virus mutations are a fact of life. In a sense, they can be a kind of natural disaster. But like earthquakes, floods or mudslides, the big question is how a society deals with such events. Cheap construction kills workers in earthquakes — that’s capitalism at work. If helicopters can ferry thousands of soldiers around the Middle East, how come those helicopters aren’t available to rescue workers from mudslides in Latin America. That’s a by-product of capitalism, not nature.

At the moment, drugs don’t seem to be very effective against SARS. But it’s not a mystery how to contain this new infection. The main thing is to prevent the disease from spreading. That’s not primarily a technical problem — it’s a social one. And that’s where the inefficiencies and anti-worker policies of capitalist governments stand out.

Capitalist governments are irresponsible. In capitalist China, despite the label used by the governing "communist" party, officials apparently covered up SARS’ rise and lied about it to public health officials worldwide. If the Chinese government had been more forthcoming — as a truly communist leadership would be — perhaps the infection could have been contained in China.

Capitalist disorganization promotes the spread of infection. Whether it’s TB, AIDS or now SARS, the social disorganization of capitalism makes it difficult to control infectious diseases. Erratic communication of information to the public leaves people unaware of the risk they pose to themselves and others. Systematic isolation of potentially infected individuals is complicated by lack of health care coverage and economic pressures not to miss work or to "keep the economy running." Under communism, the necessary isolation of individuals and institutions could be carried out quickly and efficiently — with the entire population’s full knowledge and participation.

Capitalism undermines prevention. Millions of workers work closely with animals, especially birds, who harbor viruses that could mutate and "jump" to humans. That’s the nightmare scenario: mutated viruses, capable of being spread easily from person to person, causing dangerous epidemics. In capitalist societies, industries involving work with birds and other animals are oriented toward making profits — not toward safety of workers or the public. Under communism, industry is organized to serve people’s needs, not bosses’ profits. Public health workers could ensure that animal-to-human virus transmission is minimized. Moreover, communist health workers will develop drugs and vaccines far more rapidly and efficiently than capitalist drug companies that are in it only for the bucks.

SARS, like so many other diseases and disasters, begins with nature. Capitalism does not adequately protect us against natural dangers. Communism can and will.

a name="N.Y. Times: All The Lies That’s Fit To Print">">">".Y. Times: All The Lies That’s Fit To Print

Recently the New York Times, "the paper of record" and leading spokesman for the Eastern Establishment, "confessed" that Jayson Blair, a young black reporter, had invented details and lifted quotes from other papers in several articles he wrote for the Times. They spent four pages beating their breasts about this "betrayal" of the Times’ allegedly impeccable standards, while vilifying the reporter. The paper acts as if it would never knowingly print something it knew to be untrue. Who are they kidding?

The Times has lied about every imperialist adventure undertaken by the U.S. ruling class it serves. The alleged failings of Jayson Blair pale in comparison.

On April 21, the Times ran a story by Judith Miller headlined, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, An Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." This "scientist" also supposedly linked Saddam Hussein’s regime to Al Qaeda and to chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Did Miller ever talk to this "scientist"? No. Did she ever visit his home? No. Did she ever do anything to even substantiate his existence? No. Did she identify any of these so-called WMD’s? No. Did she do anything to verify his claims? No.

Her "source"? The U.S. military! And they demanded the right to censor her story before permitting its publication. Yet her report became worldwide news, used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Such is the "fact-checking" employed by "the paper of record."

This is just one of a long list of lies, half-truths and distortions filling the Times. When the CIA engineered the 1953 overthrow of the Iranian leader Mossedegh and installed the murderous Shah; when the U.S. overthrew the popularly elected governments in Guatemala (1954) and Allende in Chile (1973) and assassinated Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, the Times just parroted the White House lies. It usually took them 30 years, after the truth of these events were reported worldwide, before the Times admitted what actually happened.

And the biggest whopper of them all was the Times’ military editor’s "report" in June of 1941 that Hitler would defeat the Soviet Red Army in six weeks! For over two decades their "fact-checkers" somehow "missed" the progress made by the workers’ government in the USSR, which created the ability to smash Hitler’s Nazis, the first force to stop them. No, the Times just could not report the truth about the first attempt in world history to erect a state not based on profits and the exploitation of the working class.

All the lies that’s fit to print, indeed. And by the way, the same applies to the other dailies. TV-radio news programas, newsweekliesd the commercial media in general.

a name="Bush ‘Victory’ in Iraq = Al Qaeda Reloaded"></">Bu"h ‘Victory’ in Iraq = Al Qaeda Reloaded

"Al Qaeda is on the run," says Bush (New York Times, 5/14). "They’re not a problem anymore."

They’re "on the run" alright — running amok all over Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Yemen and Afghanistan, to name just four hot spots bin Laden’s forces attacked virtually simultaneously on May 12-13.

Bush & Co. claimed that getting rid of Saddam Hussein would crush terrorism in the Middle East. But if anything, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has intensified anti-U.S. hostility in the region, as the latest attacks indicate. This latest assault in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, represents Al Qaeda’s drive for regime change in that country. Bin Laden represents those forces in Saudi ruling circles who want to take control of the country’s oil production, largest in the world. U.S. seizure of Iraq’s oil has only heightened the threat felt among the Saudi bosses. The bin Laden forces want the U.S. completely out of not only Saudi Arabia but of the entire Middle East and Muslim/Arab world.

The attack on the Western enclave in Riyadh was a well-planned and well-coordinated strike, with car bombs being driven deep into the guarded community by machine-gunning invaders, killing at least two dozen, including seven from the U.S. It was accomplished despite repeated warnings an attack was imminent. Even a Saudi raid on a militants’ cell a week before couldn’t prevent all 19 cell members from escaping, including 17 Saudis.

This latest incident follows the April 20 assassination of the chief of police of the Saudi town of Skaka, the fourth official to be shot dead in the last eight months, part of nine armed clashes occurring in the country since December.

"U.S. intelligence…bragged to reporters that the terrorist band was crippled, noting that it hadn’t attacked during the assault on Iraq." (Maureen Dowd column, NY Times, 5/14) "This was the big game for them — you put up or shut up, and they have failed," Cofer Black, U.S. State Dept. counter-terrorism chief told the Washington Post. Wrong again.

"Buried in the rubble of Riyadh," writes Dowd, "are some of the Bush administration’s basic assumptions: that Al Qaeda was finished, that invading Iraq would bring regional stability and that a show of American superpower against Saddam would cow terrorists."

As long as there is imperialism there will be the instability of endless wars. The fight for control of Middle East oil is behind the latest instability and will continue until the international working class ends it with communist revolution.

Black Immigrant Workers Welcome Marchers

BROOKLYN, NY, May 3 — Curiosity turned to support among passers-by in the Flatbush neighborhood here as PLP’s ideas resounded through the streets on this May Day afternoon. Everything about our march stood out. First of all, our line was different, and it caught the ear of the people. We were anti-war, but it wasn’t a peace march. The people loved our "FIGHT BACK" chants in all their variations, including when we attacked the liberal politicians. Our ability to connect war, cutbacks and deportations summed up in the phrase "there is no future for us under this system" met with no disagreement. CHALLENGE sellers got out 1,600 papers throughout the day’s events.

Secondly, the march was multi-racial and visibly led by all kinds of people. Another important thing is that our march was actually in Flatbush, a majority black immigrant neighborhood. Of the many anti-war marches organized recently in New York City none had happened yet in Flatbush, which supplies more than its share of soldiers to the U.S. war machine due to the racist economic draft.

The march was spirited and the dinner was great. Students carried the day, with an acting troupe from a local high school putting on skits about Paul Robeson — the great singer, actor, athlete, pro-communist anti-racist fighter — and the war. Young poets from Chicago proved that truly communist rap music is the best. For those few hours there was a real sense of victory, of progress. Hundreds attended several other May Day dinners throughout the city.

Communism brings out the best in people. Wars will come, fascism will intensify, and Progressive Labor Party will continue to organize to bring down capitalism and celebrate May Day in the coming years. Our hope for the future shines brightest on that day each year, and each year, more of our class brothers and sisters see that light. Onward!

May Day in LA: Building a Revolutionary Communist Party in this Day and Age of Endless Wars and Police State

LOS ANGELES, May 3 — "Fight for communism! Power to the workers!"; "Que viva, que viva, que viva comunismo!" chanted the enthusiastic May Day marchers in downtown LA. Youth — black, Latin, Asian and white — led all aspects of the march and dinner. Many wore red caps and red PLP t-shirts. They distributed thousands of leaflets about the history of May Day and the need for communist revolution to destroy the murderous racist capitalist system of wars and exploitation for profit. They sold hundreds of CHALLENGES. At the corners where hundreds of workers watched, short speeches urged them to read the paper and join us.

A lively dinner followed. An eloquent speech from a young comrade linked the war in Iraq to the slashing of health care and the starving workers worldwide, all caused by capitalism in crisis. He explained that communism will unleash the vast potential of the working class to lead and produce for our own needs, evident from the communist movement’s many past achievements.

Another speaker said we’re entering a new period in which students and workers are open to PLP’s leadership and line as we fight in the mass movement for communist ideas. She described how hundreds of students at a MEChA conference acted against the war in Iraq. She invited others to join these activities.

A young worker explained that the unemployed are part of the working class and that capitalism needs racist unemployment to use against all workers, especially during crises. Then two of her friends spoke. One, a young black man who marched for the second consecutive year, said, "I work hard. My father works every day from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. and has nothing to show for it. My whole family works hard….When I hear about people taking vacations in Cancun and Hawaii, I wish my father could do that, but he can’t….Look at the farmworkers. They work the hardest and get the least….I loved this march. We’re fighting so that people like my father can get the value of what he works for."

Another speaker described the need and opportunity to win soldiers to fight for the working class, not for the bosses. A group of college students performed a skit attacking the racist, sexist bosses.

Many signed up to subscribe to CHALLENGE and two marchers joined PLP at the dinner. Others agreed to be in PLP study groups. Students were invited to a PLP summer project to bring communist ideas to workers. One community college student marcher, active in the fight against cutbacks, had been taking 10 papers to distribute to friends, who would then discuss it together. Now she upped it to 15. A final speaker said the communist movement has been around for 155 years, but the fact that socialism did not lead to communism will not permanently hinder our class since now we know we must fight directly for communism during the growing capitalist crisis and wars.

Other dinners displayed renewed enthusiasm for building the Party and CHALLENGE in the centers of industry and in the mass movement. A group from the Middle East sang the Internationale in their native language in addition to groups singing in Spanish and English.

The march and dinners were very positive even though the turnout was more modest than we would have liked. In building for the march, we had many excellent conversations with friends about the need for the long-term fight for communist revolution. Many of our friends are now taking the Party and CHALLENGE more seriously.

On May 1st we distributed the PLP May Day leaflet to about 2,000 at the immigrant workers’ day march, calling for communist revolution. We also handed them out to workers in the garment center both before and during the march, and to janitors voting on their sellout contract the day before. Workers reading the leaflet told us it was very important, folding it up to keep. We are learning to build the Party in this new period, certainly full of danger, but also certainly teeming with opportunity.

a name="The ‘Challenge’ of A Lifetime"></">Th" ‘Challenge’ of A Lifetime

(Excerpts from a speech at the Los Angeles May Day celebration.)

In June we celebrate the beginning of the 40th year of publishing the revolutionary communist paper of the Progressive Labor Party — CHALLENGE!

A man [with] a bit of wisdom told me that politics is concentrated economics. If politics is concentrated economics, then concentrated politics is right here in my hand — CHALLENGE!

There are many comrades doing good political work. They exemplify the "serve-the-people" ethic. But no matter how high their commitment to the Party and the working class, they alone will never be able to acquire — on their own — the depth and breath of political knowledge necessary to sustain a revolutionary movement.

[The same is true for] some areas and some cities that do more advanced work than others…. Some groups and some comrades write very good leaflets….geared to the particulars on the job, in the schools, churches and the military. But no series of local leaflets can train the most advanced workers to be tribunes of the people — ready to support every protest, every outbreak against capitalism and to utilize these to drive home the revolutionary lessons needed to recruit to our Party.

A young comrade recently…[told] me. "Since 9/11 we are no longer at peace. We have to be much quicker to take advantages of opportunities….He was right.

But how do workers, particularly these younger workers and students…get the training to react quickly to each and every opportunity to build our revolutionary forces? CHALLENGE, with examples from all over…the world, from among students, workers, soldiers and their allies, provides that type of training. CHALLENGE provides the critical concentration of politics necessary to train new revolutionary soldiers.…And the wider the circulation, the less likely we are to miss opportunities for class struggle and revolutionary growth.

I sell a good number of papers where I work…. Some workers — not the majority — take the paper out of friendship and curiosity. One such worker was put on another shift. I lost track of him. I could have found him with some effort, but I was hesitant. After all, I was kind of forcing the paper on him. What did it matter?

Little did I know! About two months ago, he came to work early to find me! The world has gone crazy," he said "This Iraq war, it’s the politics of the absurd. I came to get the last four months of CHALLENGE. Don’t you ever let me miss another issue of that paper!" He then helped me organize an anti-war resolution for our union that has caused ripples all the way up to the international." CHALLENGE brought me this opportunity.

It’s not always that easy. Last week, I tried to sell a paper at work to a guy in the Green Party. I had sold him a couple of other issues. "I don’t believe that paper," he told me. I had to think fast. "Well, this article here is written by my daughter. I know that is true!"….So he took the paper and liked the article my daughter wrote. The struggle can continue.

You must fight for the paper, to sell it, to write for it…. Not only the huge things… [but] the everyday conversations and debates. I’m talking about the life of the Party!

Now here’s an [old] issue…. You see this young skinny soldier? That’s me. When I was in the Army we wrote an article for every issue. If there wasn’t a big struggle, we interviewed other GIs about their opinions on the issues of the day.

Every week, a couple of dozen brown envelopes would arrive at my company barracks. Pretty soon the captain realized they contained CHALLENGES. So he singled out who he thought was the weakest among us and threatened that soldier with Court Martial and the Stockade if he continued to read the paper. He then seized the envelope, hoping we’d all get scared and cancel our subscriptions. We held an emergency secret meeting the result of which was this "weak" soldier stormed into the captain’s office, saw his paper on the captain’s desk, grabbed it and stormed back out. Before he left, he informed the captain this was his personal property and the captain was never to touch it…. You got to fight for the paper; you got to fight to read the paper.

We’ve managed to publish CHALLENGE for 38 years. We’ve recently increased the press run because we’re selling more. Each new reader represents another nail in the bosses’ coffin. But…. maintaining CHALLENGE sales is like pushing a snowball uphill…. because CHALLENGE represents the concentration of the Party politic. It is the ideological point man in our struggle to maintain the communist movement.

As fascism intensifies, CHALLENGE will become even more important. Already, we must be careful how we organize for May Day. We’ll have to rely on CHALLENGE more and more to bring us the line and experience of our Party.

Yes, CHALLENGE is aptly named. Fighting to read, write and sell our revolutionary communist paper is the challenge of a lifetime…. Take extra papers. Sell many more. Write articles on your struggles. It’s a challenge worth a lifetime of struggle.

El Salvador:

Salute Communist Ideas

San Salvador — Thousands of workers marched on May Day through the main streets of San Salvador, the capital city. Many chanted, "Bush, fascist, you are the terrorist"; "We don’t want to be a U.S. colony"; "Long live the communist ideals." Red flags were flying high. Many carried placards with pictures of Karl Marx as well as huge posters with the hammer and sickle, the communist symbol of unity of workers and peasants.

PLP’ers distributed 300 DESAFIO-CHALLENGES and over 3,000 communist flyers. "I was waiting for this paper," said one marcher. "I knew you wouldn’t fail to bring us DESAFIO-CHALLENGE," said another. "You guys are doing the right thing with this paper," said a third. Indeed, workers and their allies are searching for revolutionary answers to a capitalist system stinking of wars, economic crisis and fascist repression.

We also met old comrades who said they again want to work with us to fight for communism.

May Day is the day when workers worldwide unite to remember the Martyrs of Chicago, workers who the bosses hung in the late 1880s for fighting for a shorter work-day. But as workers in El Salvador honored those martyrs, they also condemned President Francisco Flores, who serves Bush’s foreign policy (he spends almost all his time promoting it in Central America). Supposedly that would get the U.S. government to give better treatment to the many Salvadorans forced to enter the U.S. searching for jobs they can’t find here. However, capitalism is no paradise for workers anywhere. Immigrant workers in the U.S. are super-exploited because of racism (providing super-profits for the bosses). They also serve as cannon fodder in the endless wars U.S. rulers wage to maintain world domination.

We in PLP must direct this anger and class consciousness that many workers showed on May Day to build a mass communist movement. It’s a long, hard task, but is the only way out, for workers from San Salvador to Los Angeles.

Mexico: State or Free Market Capitalism Sucks

MEXICO CITY, May 1 — PLP marched on May Day with the electrical workers’ contingent. Our line of "Only communism will liberate the working class" spread like a prairie fire among thousands of marchers who took our flyers. One electrical worker took our red flag to march with our group. Our communist chants blasting U.S imperialism’s war in Iraq and exposing President Fox’s class war against workers here echoed throughout the entire march, especially at El Zocalo, the presidential palace.

We explained how the U.S. "victory" in Iraq sharpens the fight among the imperialists over oil and world hegemony. The bosses’ future for all workers is world war (eventually nuclear), mass unemployment, hunger and fascism. The only way out of this nightmare is to fight for communism.

Here the bosses are viciously attacking the working class through "reform" of the labor laws. Workers are suspended for three days for arriving a few minutes late; bosses can fire workers at will. Privatization and capitalism’s worldwide crisis are hitting electrical workers hard. However, many in the SME (electrical workers union) and other unions fall prey to nationalism chanting, "Fox, the fatherland is not for sale." They see state ownership of utilities and the oil company as a lesser evil, not as a fight between state capitalist and free market bosses. Both will exploit workers.

Mexico’s Nationalist bosses oppose Fox’s privatization of state-owned industries when they’re handed over to foreign bank rollers. Then they use nationalism to mislead workers into siding with "our" bosses. But, if these nationalist bosses can reap the lion’s share of privatization, that’s okay. For example, ICA, a Mexican-owned consortium, will be the main investor in an electrical plant in Nayarit, the largest since Fox took office. Local bosses are also competing for the upgrading of the infrastructure of PEMEX, the huge state-owned oil company, and for other public works.

The fight is also sharpening among European and U.S. imperialists and their local agents over the billions involved in these projects. We must unite against all of them, build a mass PLP and learn from these struggles how to get rid of all bosses.

a name="Colombia Death-Squad Gov’t Can’t Stop May Day"></">Co"ombia Death-Squad Gov’t Can’t Stop May Day

Bogota, Colombia— About one million people marched on May Day in this country’s main cities, called by unions, all kinds of social-democrats and reformists. In Bogota, these groups organized three separate activities, confusing and dividing the masses. They feared that too many angry people gathered in one place might get out of their hands. Still, 120,000 workers, youth, men and women, marched in Bogota. They attacked imperialist war and the government’s proposed labor reform laws which will destroy the few crumbs workers still have and will give bosses an even freer hand to exploit and fire workers and reduce wages, all to increase their profits.

As in previous years, PLP marched as a contingent in Bogota. With the help and support of many workers, youth and friends, we distributed 3,000 communist leaflets and many copies of DESAFIO-CHALLENGE. One worker in a union contingent was so impressed by our leaflets that he continuously read from them using the group’s bullhorn. Our chants were heard widely during the entire march: "Smash imperialist war with communist revolution"; "One working class, one communist flag"; "Youth, organize and fight for communism." Our contingent carried many signs with those and other slogans, behind a huge banner publicizing our communist newspaper DESAFIO.

May Day was a modest step forward for PLP. Our contingent improved in quantity and political quality thanks to the support of youth, housewives and workers. We are struggling to build a more mass revolutionary organization, capable of intensifying the attack on this rotten, fascist, warmaking system. The future won’t be easy but we’re determined to advance the fight for a society without any bosses.

a name="Panel Debates Iraq War; Students Make It ‘No Contest’"></">Pa"el Debates Iraq War; Students Make It ‘No Contest’

NEW YORK CITY — When hundreds of students come through, it’s like a little bit of communism. Students want to learn and when motivated will work very hard at it. As part of the working class they’ll do a great job building a communist society.

Recently 300 high school students participated in an after-school debate among three teachers on the war in Iraq. Students asked questions and made comments. One teacher was for the war, one against and one in between. The "in-between" teacher had to move toward the pro-side to even things up.

At the very beginning the students were asked to stop booing the pro-war side. Actually the pro-war teacher was only mildly so. Mainly he made the debate a success by urging lots of students to attend, and it was certainly encouraging that almost all opposed this war.

One pro-war argument advanced the necessity to eliminate Saddam Hussein, a vicious fascist. The response was that Saddam was a monster created by U. S. imperialism and that the U. S. had created many such monsters worldwide. The anti-war speaker stated that the U. S. government had never installed a democratic government anywhere. He explained how U. S. imperialism had killed 3,000,000 people in Vietnam, invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965 under Lyndon Johnson to prevent the return of a popularly elected government, maintained a vicious dictatorship in Haiti for over 30 years, was responsible for 500,000 Iraqi children dying since the first Persian Gulf War and even now was denying healthcare for veterans of that war.

The students were unbelievably attentive for two hours. They wrote down incredibly thoughtful and incisive questions for the debaters. Some took the mike to ask follow-up questions. It was quite an event. Both students and staff are still congratulating the anti-war debater. He even was hugged by a staff member he didn’t know (one way to get to know somebody!).

This wasn’t an isolated event. All kinds of discussions and activities preceded the war. Most social studies teachers had classroom discussions, as did after-school clubs that also watched related videos. One club made buttons. There was much discussion about imperialism and police-state fascism. Both students and staff attended several rallies, both in Washington, D.C., and here.

It’s also interesting to note that the U. S. imperialist government is now putting many of Saddam’s butchers right back in power — his police force, at Baghdad University, in the Health Ministry, etc. Angry doctors and health workers even demonstrated against this policy.

There is now a better understanding of capitalism and imperialism — that this war was part of U.S. rulers’ plans for world domination and that control of Middle East oil was crucial to their goal. The realization is spreading that we have many more battles to fight and that our ultimate goal must be a communist world. Stopping a war will not do it. More are looming. Already the rulers are slashing social services. The best way to fight these wars and cuts is to join the PLP and spend a lifetime of struggle for a better world. Together let’s Learn to Fight, Fight to Learn and Fight to Teach!

Boston Students Lead Fight vs. Racist Budget Cuts

BOSTON, April 29 — About 75 students and faculty from Roxbury Community College (RCC) packed into a school bus to attend a demonstration at the State House today. With high spirits, they joined thousands from every public college in Massachusetts. The demonstration opposed the draconian 20% budget cuts that threaten to devastate public higher education.

These cuts would force thousands to drop out of college, lay off a huge number of faculty and staff and slash student services. Already 40% of Boston public school employees have been excessed, laying off thousands of teachers and increasing class size. As of April 1, 43,000 patients were dropped from Medicaid.

Speakers exposed the anti-working class nature of the cuts. One attacked the Democrats and the failing union strategy of lobbying these liberals to preserve our services, jobs and benefits. The Massachusetts Teachers Association kept a tight lid on the politics, focusing on the call for new taxes and reduction of corporate tax loopholes.

Only the PLP leaflet blamed the crisis of capitalism for the cuts and called for a general strike of all government workers to defend our vital public services. Our leaflet exposed how for 35 years the Democratic legislature bolstered the profitability of Massachusetts bosses, dropping their share paid into the state’s general fund from 16% in 1968 to only 4% today. This has undermined the financial base of vital public services.

RCC students, first-timers at a demonstration, were organized to attend by fellow students who have been meeting with the RCC Anti-War Committee. Even though they don’t hold official positions in student government, they are learning that they are student leaders nevertheless because they have the courage to speak for the collective. Gaining a political understanding of the world is motivating them to organize their fellow students to make changes in our own backyard. They see that the same bosses who sacrifice Iraqi workers for global domination also balance their budget on the backs of workers and their children.

a name="Army Vet’s Workfare ‘Reward’: Joblessness"></a>"rmy Vet’s Workfare ‘Reward’: Joblessness

NEW YORK CITY, May 4 —Capitalism promotes poverty. Marvin Washington, a 45-year-old father of two, an army veteran with a metal rod in his hip from a service injury, was considered a "poster child" for the Clinton/Giuliani "welfare-to-work" promise. His reward for having "fought for his country" is that he’s another victim of the slave labor Workfare program that keeps workers in grinding poverty.

Eight years ago he was unemployed and forced to work off his welfare check in the city’s Workfare program. He scraped by on this below-poverty-level "wage" for three years when he landed a full-time job in the Sanitation Dept. For $18,000 a year he had to take three trains and a bus to work erratic shifts in which he might get off at midnight and then have to be back at 8 AM. But he worked hard and advanced to a $26,000-a-year clerical position overseeing bookkeeping and handling civilian complaints. Things were looking up.

On May 2 he received a layoff notice as billionaire Mayor Bloomberg slashes jobs to "balance the budget" on the backs of the poorest workers. Washington told the N.Y. Post (5/4) that he "thought there would be longevity" with a city job. Now, he must go back on welfare and the slave labor Workfare program. "I don’t know how I’m going to make it," he says.

Such are the fruits of Clinton’s "ending welfare as we know it." There’s only one way to end welfare — wipe out the capitalist profit system that creates mass unemployment and promotes the treadmill of poverty forced on army vets like Marvin Washington.

Red Flag Over the Reichstag:

The Battle that Finished the Nazi Regime

[The following is excerpted from Pravda (5/8/03), a Moscow daily.]

In 1998, on the eve of the 53rd anniversary of Victory Day over the Nazis, a Pravda journalist interviewed the legendary Soviet battalion commander Stepan Neustroyev who participated in raising the Red Flag over the Reichstag [Nazi Parliament in Berlin]. The veteran wrote a book, "Russian Soldier: On the Path to the Reichstag," which had added to the true story of World War II (WWII). Neustroyev looked hale and hearty at age 75, but unfortunately, this Soviet worker died soon after the interview. Although heroes die, their deeds and examples live on.

Stepan Neustroyev was a worker who dreamed of becoming a pilot, but ended up an infantryman. He entered the war in January 1942 in the bloody slaughter near Staraya Russa and made it all the way to Berlin three years later.

Q: When I read your book about our country’s glorious days, I once again understood that if a soldier knows what he’s fighting for, he is invincible. What do you think was your most difficult moment during WWII?

SN: The Demyanskaya operation on the Northwestern Front was the toughest. Although it seriously damaged the German army, the outcome wasn’t a success. It was a terrible time; even compared to the operation in Berlin. That was the triumph of Soviet strategic skills and the military valor of the Red Army. By April 25, 1945, we had encircled the German capital. My battalion in the 3rd Shock Division rushed to the center of Berlin. On April 30, we seized Himmler’s house [head of the SS, second to Hitler] and reached the square where the Reichstag stood, symbol of German Fascism. At that very moment, Soviet soldiers were told that the Army War Council had sent nine red Victory Flags….[one for each Red Army division in the operation].

Elite German SS units were massed in the center of the city. Our battalion was directly opposite to the Reichstag. The building was stormed by the battalion of Major Davydov from the right and by Senior Lieutenant Samsonov’s battalion from the left. There were just 300 meters [975 feet] remaining to reach the Reichstag, an open area fired upon from every side. Together with Alexey Berest, responsible for the battalion’s political training, we launched a series of attacks, but retreated each time. Two other battalions attacked unsuccessfully. Still, we carried out the order to seize the Reichstag. On the fourth attempt, at about 6:00 p.m. on April 30, our battalion rushed into the building and began hand-to-hand fighting with SS soldiers. Combat lasted for hours. By midnight, the battle was fading. Hitler’s troops had retreated to some underground rooms. After we caught our breath, we organized an all-round defense. Suddenly, two comrades from regimental reconnaissance, Sergeant Yegorov and Junior Sergeant Kantaria, appeared with a Victory Flag.

Q. Did you know them?

SN: Yes, Regiment Commander Colonel Zinchenko introduced these comrades to me, saying they had the honor of raising the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag. Then the colonel gave the order and the sergeants saluted and disappeared into the darkness. It was pitch black inside the building, and they had no flashlights. Minutes later they returned. I ordered Comrade Berest to take a squad of submachine-gunners and escort the sergeants. The agonizing suspense lasted for a few minutes, but it seemed like hours. Suddenly we heard a grenade blast and a burst of machine-gun fire. The entire battalion was ready to rush upstairs, but then things calmed down. In half an hour, Yegorov and Kantaria returned smiling, together with the whole squad of submachine-gunners safe and sound. Comrade Berest said they used their belts to tie the flag to a statue of bronze horses atop the building, so the Soviet flag could wave there for a long time.

At dawn, the field kitchen delivered breakfast. However, we didn’t touch it. The Soviet flag flying on top of the Reichstag infuriated the enemy. They counter-attacked to drive our battalion from the building. We thought we’d all be killed, but the Samsonov and Davydov battalions came to our rescue. Fortunately, they had remained outside the Reichstag.

The Germans had hunkered down in the building which became a trap for them as we blocked all the exits. The enemy was fighting violently, but on May 2 they asked for negotiations in the semi-basement where they had been cornered. I saw SS soldiers with faces filled with both hatred and weakness. Some held their guns at the ready, but our composure prevailed. At 7:00 a.m. the Germans hoisted a white flag and, following our instructions, left the building one by one.

The battalion stayed in the Reichstag until May 10. Before the celebration we met with Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov and then celebrated Victory Day there. Later we participated in the Victory Parade in Moscow. I returned home to the Urals on New Year’s Eve in 1946.

I was invited to work in the Department of Internal Affairs, commanding a strategic nuclear industry infrastructure. I retired in 1962 and moved with my family to Kuban in the Ukraine. My life was sometimes very hard after Perestroika [begun under Gorbachev, leading to the implosion of the Soviet Union and the return of free market capitalism]. War veterans received awful treatment. Sometimes I had no money to buy bread. Still, the great sacrifices made by the Soviet people to achieve victory were not in vain.

(CHALLENGE note: The Red Army defeated most of the Nazi war machine. Twenty-five to 30 million Soviet citizens and soldiers died during the war, compared to less than 300,000 U.S soldiers.)

LETTERS

Comrade Writes From Pakistan

I gladly write the PLP, the only party forging a real communist movement. To eliminate exploitation, slavery, poverty and illiteracy we must join with the comrades of PLP.

I am a political worker, formerly active in the Pakistan People’s Party. But I was much inspired by the ideas in CHALLENGE, The Communist and PL Magazine. I was a socialist but confused after the collapse of the USSR. Reading PLP’s literature I was surprised to see our Party’s predicting the downfall of the former Soviet Union. Now I’m convinced that the old communist movement’s 7th World Congress led to revisionism. Joining with the "Lesser Evils" was wrong.

Capitalist bosses are exploiting workers worldwide from the U.S to Pakistan. Communism is the future for the working class because without a classless society we can’t end wars, exploitation and oppression.

In Pakistan and Kashmir, the military and its Pakistani ruling class have raised the prices of basic necessities like sugar, flour, rice, milk, medicines, etc. A worker has nothing after paying the utility bills. They have denied workers unionism and freedom of expression. They suffer the attacks of fundamentalism, racism, fascism and the military. The Communist party of Pakistan cannot lead the working class to revolution because its phony and non committed leadership serves the "lesser evil" line. Nor are other so-called leftist parties real revolutionaries (as they claim) but are only misleading workers in the name of "nation," "people" and "democracy," working for national and/or local bosses. They chant the slogans of "Red Asia" and "long live our nation," diverting the working class from the road to communism. Their long public speeches against oppression do not utter a single word against capitalist exploitation. Some groups use the word socialism but know exactly it’s the essence of capitalism.

Another anti communist group here calling itself "Trotskyites" is very busy opposing communism. They try to convince poor people there’s no need to build a party of the working class; we can bring "socialism" by entering every other party — "entryism" — whether leftist or rightist. They’re dancing to the bosses’ tune. The rulers allow them to exist as long as they resist the formation of an international communist party, without which we can’t get rid of capitalism. Trotskyite "entryism" disunites the international working class. They claim to be in every party, from the Pakistan People’s Party to the Labor Party (UK) and among U.S. conservatives. Their ideas and tactics are very harmful to the working class.

In Kashmir, the reactionary, fanatical groups are terrorizing innocent people, never hesitating to kill them. Most are criminals, but disguise themselves as Mujahid (fanatic and reactionary religious fighters). They claim to be doing Jihad (a sacred war against non-Muslims) for the freedom of Kashmir. They shoot those who are not religious fanatics or who oppose this type of Jihad.

There are so-called progressives using nationalism and socialism to spread their false ideas that we need an independent Kashmir, free from Indian and Pakistani bosses, but in fact they want to make a place for local or national bosses against non-locals. Our internationalism says nationalism, in whatever form, serves the profit system.

Capitalism creates different nations, religions and "races" to divide the working class. We stand for One class, One Party. We want a classless society, without states and nations, which is why we want to smash all borders.That’s PLP’s communist movement.

Capitalism is producing wars against workers from Iraq to Korea, Kashmir to Colombia, because it needs wars to exist.

Here in Pakistan PLP has an energetic, committed and revolutionary group of communists. We’ve organized party study clubs and have translated some basic PLP articles into Urdu, like Road to Revolution IV and will send them to you. We strive to build a mass base for the Party.

Our next letter will detail Pakistan’s political situation, the building of the Party and club discussions. We are receiving CHALLENGE regularly. Please send us "The Communist" and "PL Magazine." Our communist wishes to the comrades.

Comrade, Pakistan

Organizing May Day Inside A Garment Factory

"Today we’re celebrating May Day, International Workers’ Day," began a garment worker in a speech to over 80 co-workers at lunchtime. A workers’ committee had organized this activity ahead of time. During its preparation, many had discussed the political ideas around the significance of May Day and why they should participate, from giving money for food to inviting their friends. Everyone liked the speech and the food.

Two days before, the Party distributed a leaflet at the factory calling on workers to march on May Day. It denounced exploitation, fascist deportations and imperialist wars, and championed the fight for a communist world, with workers in power, producing for our needs, not for the bosses’ profits. The leaflet and CHALLENGE were well-received.

This is our second May Day celebration inside this factory. We aim to broaden out to many more factories and garment shops. There’s a long road to travel and many obstacles to conquer, but these activities give us the confidence that workers can and will take as their own the political ideas that will break the chains binding us to this rotten capitalist system.

We vow to increase the distribution of CHALLENGE to broaden our base of support for the many struggles that lie ahead.

A garment worker

Garment Struggle Reveals Power of Working Class

After the May Day dinner, a group of 12 young workers went to a comrade’s house for some informal talk. During the evening I mentioned a garment factory where we had led several strikes to stop the bosses from lowering the piece rate and to confront their repression.

One comrade asked, "What did you get out of all that?"

I said these struggles teach valuable lessons to all workers involved, especially our comrades. We could see and feel the power of the workers — since the majority supported us — when we organized and united to fight back. We had a group of CHALLENGE readers. Many read our leaflets.

Of course, the bosses constantly harassed us. One comrade couldn’t take the pressure and quit. The boss was happy about that.

That night we met with other workers and decided the comrade had made a serious error, that he had to return to fight for his job. The next day, at 7 a.m., a group of workers confronted the boss demanding he be re-hired. The boss, surprised and fearful on seeing the workers stopping production to support their co-worker, was forced to give him his job back.

Previously, the bosses fired workers and lowered piece rates at will. Now they had to think twice before attacking us. Temporarily at least, the workers experienced the potential power of the organized working class — the class with the potential power to run society in our own interests!

After this explanation, other comrades added more about what it means to win in these class battles between workers and bosses. After this discussion, many of us vowed to go forward and organize in the factories and shops. We ended the night with a dance and the hope of a communist world without borders or exploitation.

A Persistent Comrade

LA May Day Inspires Transit Worker

I want to thank the PLP members who led and helped with the LA May Day dinner and in general to thank all those who came. The international variety of the food was delicious, but even more important, the event restored my confidence in our eventual victory. As one young student said, "With boldness and conviction, a small group of communists were able to influence a mass group to take militant actions against the war in Iraq."

I’m a transit worker. This evening, I came to the dinner with my 5-year-old son. I felt a little uncomfortable and expected to find a forlorn atmosphere of senile revolutionaries only moving by inertia. But this was not the case. The spirit of the dinner inspired me from the beginning, seeing many new faces and an environment of much struggle and confidence in the long-term victory of revolution.

I’m very happy to have come because the revolutionary songs, the speeches, the warmth and friendship and in general the whole event made me go back home with the clear consciousness that the only alternative is the fight for communism, and that the Party is the best and most serious organization that workers possess to fight for a better society.

Since the dinner, my subjectivity has declined a lot, the sale of CHALLENGE has increased and I’ve developed new prospects for a study group. I’m pushing the struggle in our club, with plans for action and study. I hope that next May Day will be very different. I won’t come alone, but with a group of co-workers and their families.

Inspired worker

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I work at a small technical school in New England. Last month, the school president called a meeting to announce that the school Board had voted to close the institution next year, saying the facility was deteriorating and the Board could no longer afford to keep it open. The faculty and staff were stunned and angered, as were the students at a later meeting. Some blamed the president for concealing information about the financial situation. Some said the school was one of the few available to black, Latin and working-class students, and that without it they would suffer.

The president, offering excuses, said the closing (what he called a "transitional period") would proceed. Soon the faculty and some staff members began to fight back. They had several meetings with the Board and organized a student letter-writing campaign to the Board and to politicians. Then students became somewhat more militant, organizing a protest on the last day of classes, which turned out to be quite spirited.

Their letters were passionate, alluding to the multi-racial, working-class school population. This pressure from the faculty, staff, students, parents and alumni impelled the Board to reconsider their decision, but delayed their vote. So a faculty member took several students to lobby at City Hall. A councilor set up a hearing to order the Board to vote again. Although it appears to be a victory, it’s hard to know what the ulterior motives are of the councilor, or of the City Council in general.

But some factors to consider include: the city owns the building housing the school; it also benefits from the many graduates who annually go on to work in the area. One thing is certain — the students shouldn’t put their blind trust in the City Council, just as they now know they should not put it in the school president.

A Comrade

Only CHALLENGE Tells It Like It Is

I applaud the contributors of the CHALLENGE for speaking out against the worldwide injustices of capitalism. As a community college student I really appreciate the eye-opening information I have read in CHALLENGE. It’s time that teachers, students and the working class wake up and stand up and protest! Finally a source willing to reveal the details and methods behind the madness of the Iraq war and the devastation being caused by the cuts in education.

I am certainly not the only person in my group who is tired of the sugar-coated television version of the news. I plan to circulate the CHALLENGE to many others who are questioning the current events of today.

A West Coast student

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I want to thank you all for a wonderful experience at the May Day dinner. I come from a country that called itself socialist. As I told a speaker at your May Day dinner, I am a member of the CP there. But I have never been to any activity like this dinner with its openly communist message. Thank you again.

A Friend

Red Eye On The News

Below Are Excerpts From Mainstream Newspapers That Contain Important Information:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

US ignores Iraqi women

While the occupiers justify the war in terms of the liberation of the Iraqi people, half of the Iraqi people do not seem to be celebrating their freedom with much vigor. Iraqi women have become almost invisible, almost unheard. Reporters talk to Iraqi men on the streets, not Iraqi women in their homes….

And when the United States gathered a meeting of its chosen leaders at Ur last week, only one woman’s voice was heard….

Iraq has a strong tradition of women’s education and employment….

Zamia Hake…was appointed Iraq’s first female judge in 1959. "Fifty years ago," she says, "women had a very good position in Iraq." (GW, 5/7)

Black kids’ ultra poverty

The number of black Americans under 18 years old who live in extreme poverty has risen sharply since 2000 and is now at its highest level since the government began collecting such figures in 1980, according to a study by the Children’s Defense Fund, a child welfare advocacy group.

In 2001, the last year for which government figures are available, nearly one million black children were living in families with after-tax incomes that were less than half the amount used to define poverty….

"Recent studies show overall poverty has declined among black children, but fail to show the record-breaking increase in extreme poverty…."

The study shows that in the first recession since the welfare law took effect, black children who have the fewest protections are falling into extreme poverty in record numbers. (NYT, 4/30)

Iraq fascists stay active

Baghdad, Iraq, May 7 — Hundreds of Iraqi doctors, nurses and health workers demonstrated today against a decision by American authorities here to appoint Ali Janabi, a senior Baath Party member, to be minister of health.

The demonstration by doctors in starched white coats was the latest indication of rising concern over the enduring influence of some members of the party that was long the vehicle for Saddam Hussein to impose his terror on Iraq….

Last week . . .an American diplomat…decided to reinstate the Baath Party leadership of Baghdad University, the largest in the country….

Despite Bush administration statements that it would dismantle Mr. Hussein’s police state, senior Baath Party officials are working openly in many Iraqi cities, especially here in the capital where power is still up for grabs. (NYT, 5/8)

New Arab war beginning?

Four separate overnight attacks involving explosions and small-arms fire struck Western targets including residential compounds in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, causing an undetermined number of casualties, Saudi officials and diplomats said today.

Initial news reports put the number of wounded from the explosions, believed to have been caused by car bombs, as high as 50….Some victims appear to have been killed.

In an interview with CNN, Robert Jordan, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said there were 40 Americans among the wounded….

A study of world attitudes toward America by the Pew Research Center in December 2002 and many other polls of Muslims from Algeria to Indonesia show ever-rising support for "martyrs." A United Nations report indicated that as soon as the United States began building up for the Iraq invasion, Qaeda recruitment has picked up in 30 to 40 countries. Recruiters for groups sponsoring terrorist acts tell researchers that volunteers are beating down the doors to join. (NYT, 5/5)

What US can bring world

Americans spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, regional theatres and orchestra performances combined. The industry has mushroomed since the 1970s, when a federal study found that it was worth little more than $10 million.

Now the US leads the world in pornography….Blue movies now rake in as much as Hollywood… (GW, 5/14)

CIA is vital to US gov’t

In his six and a half years leading the C.I.A., he became the very model of a modern major spymaster….

Helms’s professional life is essentially the story of undercover operations ordered by presidents. Standout examples: Eisenhower’s decisions to topple Prime Ministers Patrice Lumumba in Congo and Mossadegh in Iran, President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Fidel Castro in Cuba (continued by Kennedy), and Nixon’s clandestine war against Allende. In the 1960s, at the peak of racial upheaval and demonstrations against the Vietnam War, President Johnson ordered Helms "to track down the foreign Communists who are behind this intolerable interference in our domestic affairs." This demand led Helms to start up a covert snooping operation that he admits involved "a violation of our charter" not to spy on Americans at home.

On the big stuff, Helms makes a convincing case that rather than being a "rogue elephant" as often charged, the C.I.A. is a president’s political weapon of last resort, the keeper of the bag of dirty tricks. If agency acts appear roguish, Helms says, it is when government policy is roguish. (NYT, 5/4)

Empire-builders must lie!

"America is the empire that dare not speak its name," Niall Ferguson, the Oxford professor who wrote "Empire,"….said….

Asked in an interview about Viceroy Jay Gardner’s promise that U.S. military overlords would "leave fairly rapidly," Mr. Ferguson replied; I’m hoping he’s lying. Successful empires must be based on hypocrisy. The Americans can say they’re doing things in the name of freedom, liberty and apple pie….

"From 1882 until 1922, the British promised the international community 66 times that they would leave Egypt, but they never did…."

Until we get democracy stabilized in our new colonies, Mr. Ferguson offers two words of advice: "Better puppets." (NYT, 4/30)

Political police active

New figures released today also showed that the Justice Department is relying with increasing frequency on secret warrants that allow the officials to go to a secret court to get approval for surveillance and bugging warrants in terrorism and espionage investigations without notifying the target….

The court that governs the warrants did not turn down any of the Justice Department’s applications, officials said.

Voting keeps you hoping

"The opponents of [Venezuelan president] Chavez always promised and promised but never spoke to us," said Mr. Montilla, a father of three. "Now, we have rights. Before, when we talked, no one listened."

But even as President Chavez has cast himself as a champion of the downtrodden, the paradox of his popularity is that there are more and more people like Mr. Montilla: living in poverty but ardent supporters of the president.

Since Mr. Chavez was elected in 1998, poverty has grown an estimated 10 percent and now includes nearly 68 percent of Venezuelans….

"Why are the poor still with Chavez?" asked Ana Maria Sanju�n, a sociologist at the Central University. "The reason is simple. Chavez is the only one who has addressed the poor, the one who gives a hope to the poor about a possible inclusion." (NYT)